So Facebook bought Instagram for a cool $1Bn, and now Twitter has launched their own insta-copy and now Intagram say they have the rights to sell your photos!
This is why I always say “if the product is free, the product is me”. All the more reason to take full control of all my photos and data, and build my own “instagram”.
I’ve been photoblogging since 2006, starting with Shozu (remember them – what happened to these guys??) sending my mobile photos to Flickr in real time.
Enter Twitter and I initially used Twitpic as everyone else did, but I became tired of the non-existent mobile interface and ads all over the site – something that Instagram is about to introduce as well.
The problem with Twitpic, and Yfrog is as you can see below, they are littered with ads and look horrible on a mobile phone.
In 2009 I swapped to Mobypicture after meeting Mathys van Abbe in Amsterdam. It is similar in functionality to and other photo sharing sites – with a nice mobile interface and thankfully no ads. Also Mobypicture allows you to post to multiple social networking sites simultaneously.
Even Mobypicture does not meet all of my needs, as I want my own URL shortener to be used when I share the picture and not their moby.to one. This is because I like to get the stats of who’s clicking and looking at my pictures, and also helps with branding.
When I moved my site across to WebHostingBuzz and a dedicated server, I decided to “roll my own” photo sharing service – here’s how you can too.
How to roll your own Instagram in 5 steps
- Set up a new site or a subdomain of your site such as alt.pics
- Set up a completely new instance of WordPress here
- Install the WP Postie plugin that allows you to email a picture to a secret email address, and the plugin grabs the picture and posts it straight away
Install the YOURLS WordPress to Twitter plugin – this complements an existing YOURLs branded shortener at lc.tl that shortens all of my links (also works with bit.ly)
Grab the amazing “Autofocus Lite” WordPress theme that displays the photos brilliantly
That’s it. With this you have your own “Instagram-esque” site.
So how can this save me $1Bn and why is it better than Instagram?
When shooting a mobile picture on my device, I simply email it to my blog, with the text of the tweet in the subject line.
Postie then does all the rest, and YOURLS WordPress to Twitter shortens the link and then tweets it as me!
Getting the Instagram look
How do I achieve the cool Instagram filters? On my HTC One X, filters are included within the camera app.
The benefits of this “roll your own” Instagram are numerous
- It drives traffic to my photo blog pic.gs, and you can also browse the other photos there taken at different times easily
It shortens the links automatically as my branded links and is much shorter than instagr.am/p/Y65eWr457/
You can easily comment on the pages using the livefyre comment feature
It has a cool mobile optimised version using WPTouch (try viewing alt.pics on your mobile to see what I mean)
There are no ads!
I have full control of the site and the pictures
I am sure that some of you reading this post will argue that I have my own server, know what I am doing etc – but that’s my point.
If I can do it, and I am not a web designer, just an experienced blogger using a mix of open-source tools, then why is something that is technically better and has more features than Instagram cost exactly $0 in incremental funds to set up??
I say $0 in incremental funds as I already have the server and space and the plugins and themes were free.
Creating your own services for bit.ly and Twitter clients
Now I have my own server, I’m moving all of my other 3rd party services across there.
I use YOURLS for my URL shortener – see why at http://lc.tl/url – bye bye bit.ly
I use the amazing DABR Twitter client on my mobile and desktop so have no need for a 3rd party Twitter app, and now I have my own Instagram.
I’m in the process of moving my 600+ photos over at Mobypicture to alt.pics, and in the process it has been fun to see what I have been taking pictures of over the last 4 years.