Does it seem like there’s a new app popping up whenever you turn around? Well, you aren’t alone. I’m the first to admit that when it comes to learning a new thing, unless I have to, I resist. This means I’m usually pretty late to the game when it comes to things like Snapchat or even Facebook, back in the day. Over the past couple months, I’ve been pushing myself to stay on top of new and potentially interesting apps/features of apps.
Since I follow a lot of marketing related sites, it can be difficult to stay on top of it all without getting overwhelmed. Plus, it can be tricky to gauge what is going to be useful from a marketing perspective, or just be something annoying to learn that fizzles out in a matter of months. The little trick that’s saved me some time- if I can find it go by “in the wild,” either by a friend or another business, then I check it out.
To be fair, I did skip Pokemon Go (it seemed like a huge commitment and a huge black hole for my productivity/free time). Those caveats aside, here are the noteworthy apps I’ve found over the summer:
Prisma: Makes your pictures into paintings. Like Instagram, there are different filters, but the cool thing is that the filters are actually based on different artistic styles. And, unlike a filter that overlays itself on the original photo (like Instagram), when you select a style on Prisma, “goes through different layers and recreates the photo from scratch” according to The Guardian’s interview with Prisma’s founders.
Original image (from Eagle Lake)
The Scream
Mosiac
Gothic
Composition
Boomerang: Made for Instagram, this app takes a burst of 5 photos and makes them into a video that loops back and forth (the total video is only 1 second long). You can save it within the app, or post it on Facebook and/or Instagram. Since the content is moving, it’s eye catching. I still have some work on perfecting my Boomerang capturing abilities, because I make myself vaguely motion sick whenever I try to rewatch my own videos. If you haven’t seen any yet, check out this list from Tech Insider that shares a few of the noteworthy attempts from early adopters.
Facebook 360: Facebook 360 is basically a new way of sharing panoramic pictures. It may sound like an intense process, but it can be as simple as uploading a regular pano. If you’re using a phone, the photo can’t be cropped or resized, and has to cover at least 100 degrees of . According to Facebook’s information page on 360 photos, ” The most reliable way to create a 360 photo with your mobile device is to capture a photo with the Google Street View iOS or Android app.” I don’t necessarily have either of those apps, but if you don’t mind an extra step for “reliability,” this might be the way to go. For example, if you (like me) aren’t super skilled at the whole pano shot thing, and want to just be able to upload a picture without any fuss, using another app is a good strategy.
These apps are a lot of fun, so I highly recommend playing around with them (Prisma is especially entertaining). Next week, we’ll go over some ways that you can use these apps for your business marketing.