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Three observations: "The OC Problem", "Useful for n==1", and "Build an Internal Internet". 1) OC, aka: Original Content. Most sharing has trended towards reposts, memes, etc. That is the toxic cancer that has spread throughout most "social" networks. Somebody finds a funny meme, or ridiculous tornado picking up a car while someone dances a jig in front of it, and that drowns out "real" pictures of peoples kids or cats or whatever. 2) Useful for n==1. I believe it was an interview with the founder of del.ico.us (one of the OG bookmarking sites) who said "if you want users, you have to make something that's useful for _just that one user_, and if more users use it, then it gets better". It was shockingly insightful! He made delicious where I was motivated (for myself) to save bookmarks / links. If other people saved the same link, a counter went up (social proof?). I (and others) could explore shared tags (eg: `#tech`, `#javascript`, whatever), and that had an exponential utility based on number of users, BUT BOUNDED IN THE n==1 CASE! 3) Build an Internal Internet: I had a blog once upon a time (still do, and still nobody reads it ;-), and then twitter came along. Of course it grabbed my attention, of course I tweeted to be cool like the cool kids. Then I got upset with myself: "I like this micro-blogging thing, but it's taking away from my own blogging!" So I made `tweet.sh`, which did `echo "$1" > "~/blog/entries/tweets/$DATE-tweet.md"` and then styled it appropriately. Putting it all together, build an INTERNAL instagram to help people back up, organize, showcase their photos (n==1). SOCIALIZE it via cooperating / federated instances (exponential utility). Allow tagging/repost/non-OC suppression (and SOCIALIZE that... eg: allow people to anti-socialize reposts). For monetizing? Good luck. It's got to be better than iPhotos. |