For some time now I’ve been delaying the inevitable. A couple of years ago I setup a photo blog to share interesting things that I spotted on my daily out and abouts. At the time, I just wanted to see if I could get it all setup seamlessly so I’d email a photo from the phone and have everything “just work”. I got it setup so the email went to flickr, flickr posted to the blog, dlvr.it polled the blogsite and posted to both Twitter and Facebook. Simples.
Since then (18/11/2008, a view of the Thames from One London Bridge taken on a Nokia N82) I have managed to consistently post (something that surprised me, I suspected I’d give up after a few months) amassing a total of 517 photos, most recently an amusing sign at Old Street Station (posted 15/12/2012).
Why have I gone with a dedicated web service?
- Instagram photos are shown in most Twitter clients (including Twitter.com) and in Facebook without needing a subsequent clickthrough. It used to be that when posting to Facebook, it showed the image on my Timeline although more recently this has not been the case.
- I can’t use Instagram to share video (yet?)
Why did I like using my own service?
- It’s quite nice to have things within one’s own domain name (http://mymobilestream.davereinhardt.com)
- It is possible to see analytics on the pages using both bit.ly’s analytics and Google analytics
- There is no readily accessible profile page on Instagram. I can hack one together by sharing to Flickr and creating a smart group based on the Instagram tag, but its far from elegant. (Anyone know a better solution?)
My instinct is that more people will see the photos using Instagram, I just will have less ability to know whether they’re seeing them because of the limited analytics.
