This weekend Instagram went insane. I mean insane even for an app that gained 5 million users in just 8 months. Why? Justin Bieber opened an account, posted a photo of some traffic… and things went crazy. He got 1,700 followers in an hour. People going crazy for Instagram is nothing new. Nearly 860,000 photographs are posted to the app each day. Instagram users have already shared over 100 million photos since the app was released in October 2010. Over 2,500 applications use Instagram’s API. But none of these admittedly impressive figures explain why Instagram is so popular. I started using Instagram in November, a month after its launch, and I fell in love. I can’t tell you why you love it, or why all your friends love it… but I can tell you why I do.

1. Sharing photos across more than one social network at once is easy. Instead of having to upload a photo to Facebook then to Twitter, Instagram allows me to share with both these networks, and more, at once.
2. I can make my photos look awesome. The choice of filters, and the tilt-shift feature released as part of version 1.5 in March 2011, gives me just the right amount of options. There are other photo editing apps out there that give you more choices – but that’s not the point of Instagram. It gives you just the right amount of ways to prettify your shots.
3. The “Follow” feature allows me to follow users whose photography I like. This is a great way to find inspiration and interact with new people. I even found a user who takes photographs in the same area as me, and we have chatted about cool places to hang out via Instagram.
4. When you “like” a picture on Instagram, it doesn’t just label it “liked” as Facebook does. It also adds all your “liked” images to an album so that you can look at them time and time again. And if you like them, why wouldn’t you want to do that?!
5. Instagram introduced hashtags into the app in January, which let users search using hashtags, just like on twitter. People use hashtags to tag their photographs with relevant topics, which makes it easy to find photos relating to #sunshine, #bw, or even #foodporn.
6. Instagram released its public API in February and since then many third party web apps have sprung up, all with their own special features and layouts. I’m a big fan of Extragram; other good apps are Webstagram, Inkstagram, and Gramfeed. Statigram is a great web app for checking out your Instagram statistics – how many times you’ve used each filter, which day of the week you usually post on, and other stats that you’ll probably never need to know but might find fun anyway.
7. I can use my Instagram photos for my screensaver. Well, I would be able to if I had a Mac or an iPad. Screenstagram lets you view photos from your friends, or from the popular feed, on your Mac. GramFrame does the same thing for your iPad.
8. Instagram has been used for some great social media marketing opportunities. Brands ranging from Starbucks, to National Geographic, to Playboy (no, they aren’t sharing adult content – just behind the scenes images from the office) have all set up Instagram accounts. Starbucks shared their new logo with their Instagram followers after releasing it, asking them what they thought. National Geographic seems to have wasted their account a little – posting one image, asking people what they want to see on Instagram, getting 459 comments… and then disappearing.
9. Want to see your Instagram pictures offline? There are a few companies who provide excellent printing options. Printstagram lets you print posters, mini books, stickers, and more with your Instagram photos. And Keepsy’s Instant Album is a great way to keep all your Instagram shots safe in the same place.
10. Instagram makes everyone feel like a good photographer. You can take your simple snaps that you did on a night out with friends and make them look like art.

Instagram is free, and is available for the iPhone. What are your favorite photography applications on your phones? I’d love to hear!

Joanna has a Bachelor of Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University in England. After graduating, Joanna used her creative skills in writing and marketing roles before joining the Blonde 2.0 team. She enjoys writing and using social media in both her personal and professional lives, using social media to keep in touch with and make new friends around the world. Joanna keeps an active blog and is savvy in all topics related to social media.

Fotobabble launched its new iPhone app today, allowing people to add voice to the photos they send and share with friends and family via Email, Twitter, Facebook or an iPhone. With the new Fotobabble iPhone app, users can easily create talking photos within seconds with a few clicks on a Web browser or their iPhone.

The possibilities of what one can do with talking photos are simply endless, since adding life to photos is a tool truly everyone can enjoy and benefit from. As if the experience of sharing photos is not fun enough, knowing I can add my voice to a photo I want to share really allows the viewer to share the memories with me. A few cool memories I look forward to capturing my voice & sharing with others: a friend’s live wedding engagement and sharing it with family; sending a picture to my roommate with my voice describing the perfect couch for our living room; recording my voice in a home-made greeting card or send a talking postcard from my vacation to Hawaii. Fotobabble gives a whole new meaning to the famous quote: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Creating and sharing a “Fotobabble” takes seconds, is free to use and is now available for users who are out and about with their iPhones. After downloading the free Fotobabble iPhone app, users just upload a photo and record their voice directly through their computer’s microphone to create a talking photo. They then have the option to select an existing photo or a snap a new one and then record their voice. Whether using a computer or an Phone, users can share talking photos via Email, Facebook, Twitter, or embed them into a blog or Website.

Kamal Shah, CEO of Fotobabble, noted that there are tens of billions of static photos on the Web without voice or sound – three billion photos of which are uploaded to Facebook each month alone! “Using Fotobabble, people and businesses can greatly enhance these images with the energy and emotion of voice” – says Shah.

Fotobabble for Fun & Communication:

Fotobabble for Business:

Businesses can also utilize Fotobabbles to promote their product, engage with customers online more effectively or to increase the number of visitors to their Website, blog or Facebook page. Fotobabbles are easily embedded anywhere on the Web and greatly improve how images are presented and experienced online for your customers.

Brand and ad agencies may use Fotobabble as a social media marketing platform. Fotobabble’s flexibility makes it easy to build customized viral marketing campaigns that are more engaging than text or static photos and are much simpler than video to create and share. Brands can build truly unique campaigns using Fotobabble in contests, Facebook, Twitter and blogs – to name a few.

Companies and celebrities can leverage the power of Fotobabble by creating talking photos to raise awareness for their brand and better engage with their customers and fans.

Fotobabble takes photo sharing to a whole new level. No software is needed to download the app, since Fotobabble supports PCs, Macs and the Apple iPhone, making it easy for people to create talking photos and share them with friends, family, their business – or with the whole world. You may download the free Fotobabble iPhone App here to start adding life to your static photos.

Dorine Sinigaglia is the Account & Content Manager at Blonde 2.0.

I never get deeply upset or let emotions get the better of me when it comes to dealing with web services.

I mean I do expect them to deliver and  fulfill their added value but if the service doesn’t deliver, i don’t take it personally nor get angry (..at least I don’t get angry for longer than 2 minutes).  I remind you we are talking about web services and most of them do not cost us money.

So what about a web service where i am a paying customer? Should i take it to heart when the web service “hurts me” personally? Do I feel bad after I terminate our relationship?

Flickr is a web service where I am a paying costumer and I was a happy customer until a few months ago. I used Flickr for a few years and right from the start I knew I want to ‘store’ my photos there (rather than just share them). In a sense it was a storage room for my pics.

Flickr has a great community, lots of social and sharing features and they had a great team leading their services .. they were on the golden path to becoming the nicest brand on the web. So what happened?

I can only tell you my personal opinion, but lately I’ve read some blog posts from mighty users such as Thomas Hawk, Yaniv Golan.  Thomas Hawk and Yaniv Golan are known figures in both the tech/internet world and the photography one. Thomas Hawk, who writes almost daily about Flickr and other photography related issues attempted to overthrow the flickr empire with zooomr (’nuff respect for him) I appreciate the way he uses the site – see what i mean?

Whether it’s Flickr’s censorship policy or technical hiccups, the service is not running smoothly. The site is not respecting the users feelings nor how they are behaving on the site.  Seeing new features is quite rare these days on Flickr. I remember when Flickr add the flic.kr service which allowed you to post photos directly to your twitter stream (check the short url service that came along – http://flic.kr) it was great news but apparently the hype faded real quick.

I knew Caterina Fake was one of the founders of Flickr. I used to follow her photo stream. I enjoyed seeing some Flickr HQ pics and all, but ever since she left for her new start-up called Hunch , I personally feel a little abandoned

I don’t consider myself a photographer. Most of the pictures I take and upload come from my cell phone camera (I use the Nokia N95) and in essence show my life stream.  I love to share my photos with outsiders and not only with the photography freaks on flickr (hence the flic.kr service).  I really can’t put the finger on what’s bothering me right now, yet coming across other blog posts and status updates of  how others feel exactly the same way I do about Flickr only solidifies the feeling. Perhaps Flickr will wake up soon and change things?

This is not a threat post, ‘Satisfy-me-before-I-am-leaving’ kinda post. I still have a pro account till October 21st, 2010 which I intend to use fully.  If you own a Flickr pro account – i’d love to hear your thoughts.

The lovely picture comes from: Peter Renshaw a.k.a. bootload

MyHeritage is a social network and software for genealogists. Launched in 2005, MyHeritage has since accumulated 33 million users worldwide. The company helps people build family trees, share them with their relatives and stay in touch with their loved ones. They are the most popular free family tree website according to ProGeneologists.com. Family Tree Builder, their geneology software program, is the most popular free geneology application.

MyHeritage started only as a free software program. With Web 2.0 taking a more dominant role, the company understood that people wanted to share their family tree and therefore it evolved into more of a network where people could collaboratively build and share their family trees, photos, receive birthday notifications, plan family events, or even send gifts to their loved ones.

The site has unique free genealogy tools such as Smart Matches which compare any person in your tree with the whole database and show the user other people researching the same ancestors. This can help researchers discover long-lost branches of their family, many generations apart. Some of those stories can be found on their blog. Generations of families have reunited across continents, languages, and cultures.

The most important genealogy product on MyHeritage is a simple piece of software called Family Tree Builder, which is really easy to use even for those not very experienced in the genealogy world. They also offer a more advanced Premium version for those who are really into genealogy. This week, they have just launched the latest version of Family Tree Builder (currently available for Windows-only).

Family Tree Builder is the most popular free geneology software. With more than 5 million downloads so far, Family Tree Builder is the world’s most popular free genealogy software, allowing seasoned pros and beginners alike to build family trees, research their family history, add photos and videos, and obtain unique Smart Matches™ with other family trees worldwide.

With today’s release, their software just got even more user-friendly. Some of the new features of Family Tree Builder include:

• Maps - Family Tree Builder 4.0 features a new module that shows you all of the places mentioned on your tree. Even more important, perhaps, given changing geographical borders and political boundaries, is a feature that suggests how to improve your data and fix spelling and consistency mistakes in place names. For example, a family tree contributed by many members of an extended family might refer to Dumbrowa, Dabrowa,  and Dabrowa Bialystocka, and someone might think that these are all different locations when they refer to the same Polish town, but not the similiar-sounding Dabrowa Gornicka. The maps module is free for all users, with size limitations lifted for Premium and Premium Plus members.
• Photo Albums – Photos and photo sharing are an integral part of MyHeritage. Family Tree Builder lets geneologists organize their photos into albums with simple drag and drop. When you publish your tree to MyHeritage’s website, your photo albums remain intact.
• Slideshow & Screen Saver – Family Tree Builder can display your pictures as a slideshow or screen saver that displays your family photos when your computer is idle. It also integrates with MyHeritage’s tagging and facial recognition features.
• Family Toolbar – An integrated toolbar integrated with MyHeritage.com, the toolbar provides the world’s first Family Chat that lets you chat with family members whenever they are online. It also lets you visit your family site in a single click, get birthday reminders and perform powerful genealogy searches.
• Recovery – When you restore a family tree that was published online, your photos will be recovered.
• Family Tree Builder also includes a new tool that finds family members that are probably deceased but not mentioned as such in your tree.
• Multilanguage support – Family Tree Builder supports over 34 languages, both making it useful for a worldwide audience and also more useful than competing programs as many people’s families span multiple continents and languages over the generations.

“In recent years we’ve seen a growing number of people who want to learn more about their ancestors and where they came from,” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage.com. “With the new map module, people can get an appealing visual representation of their family’s life journeys. They can also map the addresses of family members, quickly find all events and photos associated with a particular place and even standardize place names using smart suggestions. This provides a fascinating new perspective for millions of people interested in their family history.”

The new family toolbar provides direct access to family sites on MyHeritage.com, adds powerful genealogy search and features Family Chat – a text, audio and video chat system built specifically for family use. Members also receive useful birthday reminders on the family toolbar without leaving the Web page they are on.

Family Tree Builder’s family tree display is much easier to use than some of the competing commercial software. For example, you can display at least seven generations on a single screen, as well as marital status and other personal information, without the page feeling cramped. In addition, it’s far less resource hogging than the competing Family Tree Maker.

It’s impossible to find free family tree builder software as powerful and user-friendly as Family Tree Builder. In fact, the paid version has more interesting features and a nice simple UI, without the memory hog, of its leading competitors. Family Tree Builder is definately an incredibly useful tool to have in the amateur or professional geneologist’s toolbox.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Mario F. Ruckh, Director of Marketing at MyHeritage, when I was in London last month. Here is MyHeritage in his own words: