There is a whole resurgence of photo sharing and it is all based on creating a natively mobile experience (as opposed to adding mobile as an after thought). This is interesting two reasons. First, photo sharing is of course one of the most common activities on Facebook. Second, as I noted in a recent post on mobile opportunities, there is a big behavioral shift underway with people leaving their cameras at home and using their phones instead. So if a startup succeeds wildly here they will be influential.
Dave Morin’s Path is taking one extreme approach of being “anti-viral” and thightly limiting sharing. I have not seen the Path app but am basing that on Liz Gannes write-up http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/20101114/path-the-social-app-thats-not-viral-by-design
Instagram on the other hand is all about open publishing and viral adoption. It has been maligned by some for the “degradation” of images through filters. I happen to think that’s a feature of great interest. Not only does it make use of the distributed processing power in the phones, but it lets people turn a mundane shot into something they feel good about sharing.
Between these two bookends there is a ton of room for innovation and this is something to watch with great interest. The amount of experimentation going on is reason alone to be excited!
P.S. Sorry for the paucity of links - am on my way to the airport
