Previously we discussed Snapchat and the new phenomenon of “self-destructing” photos — shots you can send for real-time visual communication without worrying they’ll be around forever to embarrass you — and predicted Facebook would soon offer its own version.

That happened almost instantaneously, as the leading social service introduced its Poke for Mobile app.

The iPhone app “makes it fun and easy to say hello to friends wherever you are,” the company says. The poke feature has been a part of Facebook since 2004. “Now we’re excited to share a new poke experience for mobile. With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app.”

As we noted last week, “sexting” is a concern with these instant images. Facebook notes that “”If you ever see something you’re uncomfortable with, you can click the gear menu and report it.”

12-26-2012

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News analysis with Hans Hartman

There is some truth to the cliché, “A picture is worth a 1000 words.” Instagram knows it, and so does Twitter. No wonder photo-based Instagram has more daily active users than text-centric Twitter.  No wonder Twitter offered to buy Instagram for $525 million before Facebook managed to snap it up.  No wonder Twitter stopped outsourcing their photo storage to Photobucket to control their photo destiny themselves.

But what if your 1000 words were automatically recorded by the other party, who’d keep that recording?  Would you think twice before you pick up the phone — or share your picture? I hate to break it to you, but your 1000 words are recorded the minute you share your photo. Each time you email a photo the recipient has a copy, and they might share it with anyone — and there’s nothing you could do about it. And it’s worse with social networks. We found in our 6Sight Social Imaging Survey that people share on the average 34 photos per month.  But each time you share a photo on Facebook, who knows who’ll see it, today, this week, or ten years from now? It might linger around forever and could come back to haunt you, as editor Sarah Lacy writes at the Pandodaily news site.

However — what would happen if you could share certain photos without fear of being recorded? What if they could be set to “self-destruct” after a few seconds?  Would you share more photos?

Snapchat offers just that.  The five-person startup let you take and share what they call “self-destructing” photos. Already, 50 million are shared this way per day! That’s 10 times as many as Instagram, and already one-sixth the number of uploaded daily to Facebook.  (And if photos are not enough, the company announced on Friday it will also let you share self-destructing videos.)

Snapchat says it has “a new way to share photos with friends and family. We’re making “social media” fun again. We believe in sharing authentic moments with friends. It’s not all about fancy vacations, sushi dinners, or beautiful sunsets. Sometimes it’s an inside joke, a silly face, or greetings from a pet fish. Sharing those moments should be fun. Communication is more entertaining when it’s with the people who know us best. And we know that no one is better at making us laugh than our friends. There is value in the ephemeral. Great conversations are magical. That’s because they are shared, enjoyed, but not saved.”

As 80 percent of these photos are shared during the day, Snapchat’s success can’t be brushed off as “sexting,” as some have tried to do. Instead, we might be witnessing the birth of a new era of image sharing.

What are they sharing? It can primarily be the silly shots you’d like to send as a joke — if only you didn’t have to fear the image being out there forever for potential embarrassment.

It might also encourage a new generation of smartphone users to take up true visual communication — using an image instead of a thousand words, with the same freedom from worry they now have when it comes to talking on the phone that their words might be recovered.

Instant, “disposable” images are on their way. Who is first in line with a Snapchat clone?  Not too surprising: it’s Facebook! The company spent so much money on Instagram, but now it’s suddenly seeing photos shared in droves outside either of its networks. It can’t chance missing out on another disruptive new photosharing trend. Yes, a picture is worth a 1000 words, as Facebook knows better than most of us realize…

More information is here.

And here.

Suite 48 Analytics president Hans Hartman will speak in the “Mobile Imaging and retail Category Growth” session at DIMA, and the “Mobile Photo App Users – Will They ever order Photo Products?” session at PMA@CES.

12-19-2012

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