While Pinterest is fast becoming the new darling of Social Media, my head’s been turned by Cinemagram. Literally.
As an avid user of Instagram I love its clever way of making me look like, in my mind, an accomplished photographer. It’s one of a slew of apps that have taken the old complexities of uploading photos and made it simpler and significantly more rewarding. Instagram has stood out from its many competitors, mainly thanks to its pure simplicity and the often surprisingly professional looking results it produces.
Ford’s Fiestagram campaign tapped into our increasing desire to share images of the mundane made beautiful by Instagram’s array of tilt shift and filters. Their simple competition mechanic asked Instagram users to create and tag images inspired by the technology behind the Fiesta (#starting #entry etc.) for the chance to win a car. And it worked. It tapped into a meme resulting in over 16,000 photo entries.
But now there’s a new toy to play with. Cinemagram allows you to create what are essentially animated gifs. Like Instagram you capture what you want, but with Cinemagram you take a short video rather than a photo. An incredibly simple interface allows you to choose which area of the image to animate and gives you a selection of Instagram style filters.
The results are intriguing, clever, occasionally unnerving but mostly utterly charming. Users are already experimenting with what they can create and every time you see a new Cinemagram it sparks further ideas of how to create something even more interesting.
Perhaps Cinemagram will remain a niche social tool. The £1.49 price tag will put many off. But with social apps and tools focused on visual expression growing their user bases rapidly, Cinemagram offers something new and unusual.
See examples: http://cinemagram.tumblr.com/
Get Cinemagram: http://cinemagr.am/
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by Toby Gunton
