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"Within one week of its launch in October, photo sharing app Instagram had 100,000 signups. Seven months later, it had 4.25 million users.\nOnline photo sharing has long-been popular: Picasa launched in 2002; Flickr was founded in 2004, and Facebook was home to about 60 billion photos by the end of 2010. But mobile applications have suddenly exploded in popularity. Photo shooting and editing apps like Hipstamatic, Darkroom and CameraBag have been downloaded to millions of smartphones in the the past couple of years. \nSo many photo apps have launched, in fact, that the online photo editing site Aviary released a photo API this month to help people build photo apps.The API allows developers to automatically apply filters, effects, watermarks and other edits to photos, all in the cloud. The trend is clear: Millions of people are getting their hands on phones with cameras, and developers are taking advantage of it.\nIf photo sharing has been around for so long already, including mobile versions of Facebook and Flickr, what's made mobile apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram so wildly popular?\n\r\n1. Phone Cameras No Longer Suck\r\n\n\n\n\n\nThe first and possibly biggest trend fueling the photo-app craze is the ubiquity of decent camera phones. As cellphone and smartphone penetration increases and phones get exponentially better, more and more consumers are carrying high-resolution cameras with them wherever they go.\nFor example: Apple's first iPhone had a 2 megapixel camera; the iPhone 4 packs 5 megapixels into an even smaller device. That's as high-resolution as many standalone digital cameras. Motorola, HTC and other phone manufacturers are releasing phones with increasingly precise cameras as well. Armed with pixel-perfect cellphone cameras in their pockets, it's no wonder more people are taking photos. \n\r\n2. Social Photo Apps Offer Instant Distribution and Gratification\r\n\n\n\n\n\nMobile apps provide immediate gratification for in-the-moment photos. Rather than taking a photo, going home, downloading it to a computer and then posting it online, photo apps let you publish immediately. Instagram takes things a step further by allowing people to \"follow\" individual photo streams. Users get immediate distribution in addition to instant publishing.\nInstagram provides seamless social integration with users' other networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare and Tumblr. This means it's just as easy to take and share a photo via Instagram as it is on one of your other networks. In fact, if you're in the habit of posting to multiple networks, Instagram is much quicker.\n\r\n3. Simplicity is the Main Feature\r\n\n\n\n\n\nThe most popular mobile apps are good at doing a few simple things really well. The emphasis on limited features often allows for a better user experience. \nRather than going crazy on the features, Instagram and its clones let you take photos, apply filters, share them and follow photo streams. That's about it. There's no emphasis on albums, resolution, rights management, or many other things traditional photo sites have. These apps are made for the everyday user.\n\r\n4. They're Made for Mobile\r\n\n\n\n\n\nWeb photo sites try to make the analog photo world digital. Mobile is different from the web. Phones are with us pretty much 24/7, they are integrated into our daily lives. For this reason, photo apps built from the ground up with on-the-go usability in mind are optimized for different behaviors, ones that are conducive to quick snaps and fast social sharing.\n\r\n5. Photo Apps and Status Updates\r\n\n\n\n\n\nFacebook, Picasa and Flickr photos are essentially digitized versions of photo albums you might put on a coffee table. They're about archiving memories and immortalizing artistic scenes. Instagram, on the other hand, is built around sharing streams of photos. They act more as status updates or snapshots in a timeline. The stream style of Instagram's social network emphasizes what photos are being taken now, not who's got the best portfolio.\nIt's a subtle difference but one that prides updates in the here and now over deep collections.\n\r\n6. Anyone Can Feel Like an Artist\r\n\n\n\n\n\nNot many people are very good at taking photos. Even fewer are skilled at composing them with a cameraphone. With the swipe of the finger, noobs can turn their photos from \"meh\" to \"magnificent\" using artistic filters like those on Hipstamatic, the Aviary API and hundreds of other apps. Perhaps \"magnificent\" is a stretch for some fledgling photographers, but old style filters, retro lens simulators and color adjusting tools can salvage a poor shot or make an amateur look like an artisan.\nIt feels good to create quality content. Robust photo apps empower almost anyone to do it.\n\nWhat draws you to the world of mobile photography? And will this trend continue, or is it simply a fad? Share your thoughts (and photos!) in the comments.\n\nImages courtesy of Mashable staff members Lauren Indvik, Christina Warren, Robyn Peterson, Karen Hartline, Stan Schroeder, Brian Anthony Hernandez and Amy-Mae Elliott."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/06/02/mobile-photo-app-trends/>