I was really in love with Instagram. I’ve put tons of photos into the system, and love the feedback I get there, love the quality of photos I see flowing through the system there, love the user interface, and more. So do many other people. It was the hit of 2010, breaking a million users after just being out a few weeks.
But is our love misplaced?
I’ve found my love waning after learning that competitor PicPlz is cross platform. That alone should be important, because more of your friends can see (and share with you) photos.
But after talking to PicPlz’ CEO/founder Dalton Caldwell I learned something far more important: it doesn’t destroy image quality the way Instagram does.
Let me explain what I mean.
If I use Instagram it reduces the image size to fit into its format. That’s throwing pixels away.
But worse, if I apply a filter in Instagram, say, to make an image black and white, it permanently throws away the color info and only uploads to its servers a black and white version.
PicPlz, on the other hand, uploads the full quality photo (which takes slightly longer) but then applies any filters you use on the server. Even then it stores both your original image as well as the new, black and white version (or whatever filter you chose). That’s a HUGE difference in philosophy and one that is making me question my love of Instagram.
Further, PicPlz has an API (read and write) that lets you do filters and other stuff server side that Instagram is going to struggle to do.
How about you? Are you still in love with Instagram after hearing all this?
Here, watch Dalton demo his app and tell me how PicPlz works.
Scobleizer 