Tag : ideas

Over the last month it's been exciting to watch Instagram grow within Made By Many. Tim's post Quora is from Mars, Instagram is from Venus talks about the "simple pre-verbal delight of sharing something beautiful by showing it to other people" and that's the heart of the attraction. Instagram is incredibly casual, it doesn't demand you share your location, and the community is clearly encouraged to "like" other photos, rather than submitting comments, or rating pictures.

My first reaction to realising how much and how often I checked the Instagram feed was to start thinking about an API. Perhaps that's a natural reaction, wanting to build things on top of a successful, social application, but I'm becoming more convinced that it's also the wrong one.

There’s no denying that Spotify has taken the world of online music to a new (legal) level. Their ever-increasing catalogue of artists and albums, coupled with the acceptance of their app into the iTunes store will, no doubt, alter the way millions of people both pay for and consume music.

The application is a model of elegant simplicity. It easy to find your way around the service, listen to music and create and share playlists.

However, there are times when you open the app and you have no idea where to start. To torture the metaphor – you have a potential fire hose of music content but turning the right tap can sometimes be difficult. What do I fancy? What’s my mood? What am I doing? Do I just want some background noise or some hum-along favourites?