Identify and review benchmarks & user hacks

[xmatthewx]

What tools do people use to manipulate photos and found content? What tools do this within a platform like instagram and between platforms? How do people string together tools to make things beyond the intentions of the tool?

Understanding how people hack the gaps between existing tools & platforms will enable us to make a unique thing that people actually want to use. Mapping these tricks can help us create a tool that cracks the divide between closed and open publishing.

Apps

• Tumblr
• Instagram (IRL)
• Over
• Snapchat
• Glitchr
• Skitch
• Pixlr
• Aviary SDK

Add-ons

• Awesome Screenshot - Diigo
  • 1.3m users of chrome extenstion
  • 200k users of Firefox add-on
• Stylish - user style sheets
  • 750k users of Firefox add-on, 1% on android
• "instagram for chrome"
  • 1.2m users

Also ran

• shu - FF
• GooEdit - Chrome
• Photon - Facebook Photo Editor - Chrome

Others?

[xmatthewx]

Quick anecdote via @toolness. He observed a person who uses instagram as a tool, but not as a publishing platform as intended. If I remember correctly, they...

1. take a photo
2. pull it into instragram
3. add filters
4. temporarily publish
5. save image from web
6. remove from instagram
7. do other things with image

[xmatthewx]

Web user with a PhD in sociology who served as tech assistant to other faculty while in grad school. Active on instagram, snapchat, tumblr.

He often finds and re-shares images. He occasionally likes to add text to them. To accomplish that, he...

1. drags image from browser to desktop
2. adds image to a microsoft word doc
3. adds text on image
4. takes a screenshot
5. shares the screenshot via email, tumblr etc