Instagram is and was a great app. When Instagram launched in October of 2010, it offered two game-changing features: photo sharing and filters. While Facebook and other services offered photo upload, Instagram offered photo upload in a streamlined, easy to share way that caused photos to spread rapidly on other social networks. Secondly, Instagram offered a suite of filters which enhanced the often shoddy mobile photographs of the time.
Three years later, things are quite a bit different. Twitter has been offering its own photo upload service since September of 2011. Pinterest, Snapchat, Flickr, and a slew of other services offer photo upload in a variety of forms. Filters have permeated just about every app from the system camera app in iOS 7, to third-party apps like VSCOCam, Twitter, Facebook Camera, Camera+, and many more. While Instagram has pioneered many great features which we take for granted, the app no longer holds the value it offered in 2010. While the app offers a polished and smooth user experience, it has failed to innovate at the rate of other social networks. Currently, it’s struggling to keep up with competitors such as Snapchat and Vine which have created new and more culturally relevant features.
With this backdrop, OKDOTHIS entered the scene on November 25th 2013. Up until now, the most popular social networks have been focused on sharing, consuming, and interacting with user-created content. OKDOTHIS is revolutionarily different because it focuses on the act of creating user content. Users share DOs in the app, ideas, which prompt real-world experiences as well as new and exciting content. Sharing ideas is radically opposed to the cultural misconception that ideas are innately valuable without implementation. Sharing ideas harnesses the power of collaboration, while avoiding the greed of copyrights, patents, and NDAs. Most importantly, sharing ideas unlocks the beauty of interpretation and diversity of artistic expression.
Have you heard the saying “great artists steal?” They sure do, and I think we’re all glad for it.
