Yep – turns out I’ve got more to say….

Insta……death of Vine on Droid?

I became intrigued from the time Vine was launched as a potentially awesome platform for Frameable Faces.  We have used video quite a bit – mainly on YouTube.  It’s an effective platform for testimonials, slide shows from sessions, various interviews and behind the scenes features.  The idea of Vine is exciting because it provides what I have seen one guru refer to as “snack sized” social media bites to go with videos on our YouTube channel which are more like “main courses”.  Vine could be to video what Instagram has been to photos for us – just fun quickie behind the scenes shots – visits from friends, events, photo shoots, and even some silliness now and then.  Vine was released only for iOS (iPhone/iPod touch) on January 24th.  We are an Apple shop for everything but our smartphones – we have Droids because T-Mobile didn’t get the iPhone until April of this year.  As Droid owners (Samsung Galaxy Blaze 4G to be exact) we had to wait from January 24th to June 3rd before Vine was released for Droid.  That’s a pretty long wait, and when it was finally released it was a mess…….  and it’s still a mess.  There is no way to search for other users which totally takes the social aspect away from a social media app.  Totally useless.  Sure we can be patient and wait – it’s frustrating but what else can we do?  We’re not ready to buy iPhones just yet.

Well, yesterday I opened instagram like I do a few times every day and there was a notification there that Instagram has added video!  15 seconds vs. Vine’s 6, with the familiar feature of Instagram layers (specific video layers) and the option to pick a cover image for your video.  To me this means Vine’s window for Droid users could shut.  Why would I bother trying to build a following on Vine when I can share the same (if not better) content on a platform in the same fashion where I already have a following?  I also have to say that while the 6 second limit on Vine forces people to find creative ways to tell a story in 6 seconds, it is just so short.  Unless Vine proves to become so overwhelmingly popular with our high school seniors that we can’t ignore it, I think I won’t bother with it.  I’m not adding another platform if I don’t need it.  Sorry Vine, I could be wrong but I think you blew a huge opportunity by releasing such a buggy mess for Droid and not fixing it before Instagram had their own video option ready.  We’ll see how it plays out.  Meanwhile here is a blog post with a great breakdown comparison between the two.

UPDATE – I tried to use Instagram video since I finished writing the section above and since T-Mobile doesn’t want to release an update for the Samsung Blaze 4G from Android 4.0.4 to 4.1 or better I can’t make Instagram videos for the time being.  Instagram videos can only be made with the 4.1 version or newer.  Ugh.  The struggle continues…

UPDATE TWO (June 24th) – Vine added search!  Now I’m using it and enjoying it.  Seeing the updates being pushed to my phone is like watching two heavyweights battle it out – the other morning it was happening in real time!  Meanwhile there seems to be a bit of a backlash going on about videos intruding on Instagram feeds…  Anything else I have to say on the topic will go into the next rant…

Hacked….

Yes we were hacked.  What a nightmare – someone (apparently from Poland) got into our website and uploaded some malware.  Google flagged our website and blog with a warning basically preventing anyone from getting to either site with a computer for what ended up being a couple weeks.  It’s a good thing we don’t survive by an online ordering business or we could have been in huge trouble.  They didn’t change any content on either site or ruin either of them, it was just a pain in the butt having to identify what happened, have our host reset the passwords, check for any bad files, clean the bad files off, and then submit a request to Google to remove the warning.  The folks at EPK Design who originally designed this blog for us were hugely helpful in getting this sorted out.  That was a bummer and that was why you didn’t see any new posts here for the first half of June.

Other quick hits…

• We are excited for our new class of 2014 senior mural in the window of our studio!  It’s up and it looks fantastic!
• I find Steve McCurry’s photos to be fascinating.  If you haven’t checked out his blog before you should bookmark it and you can start with this photo essay on the monsoons on the other side of the world.
• This was our first year at Relay For Life West Bloomfield as Team Frameable Faces!  It was a great day and there will be a blog post about it here soon…