by ExAddict
Listening to: “Cinema” w/ Benny Benassi [Maurizio Gubellini Remix] [feat. Gary Go] (Available on iTunes)
Dispatch Location: @OrangeYYZ, ING Direct Cafe, Toronto
Hipster (from Hipster.com) is an application not unlike Instagram which applies filter effects, lighting screens, text, GPS integration and borders to all your iPhone or iPad photos and makes them available in your custom photo stream on Hipster.com and is instantly exportable among other social media platforms including Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook, and Foursquare.
The unique thing about this “program” (although I recognize we are diverging from the use of that term) is that the app presents photos as postcards. I like the general look of this as it is presented in my photo roll on the Hipster.com website. I prefer this Hunter S. Thompson-inspired layout rather than the boxy square-tab presentation offered by Instagram. The postcards are better suited for writers or journalists augmenting their tweet-style with “notes from the front” as the GPS functionality looks tight as hell if you are broadcasting reality or your pseudo-reality.
While Instagram weighs in with a mighty 1783 ratings versus just 10 for Hipster, I prefer the latter for ease of use. User settings and menu options are easier to manage in Hipster compared with Instagram, and I also enjoy that my tweetstream is updated with references to #Hipster, which makes me feel, well, like a #Hipster. Plus, it’s one of those apps that instantly logs on with your Facebook ID meaning no extra password nonsense.
There are 14 sweet postcard filters to start with and the developer emailed me this week to tell me that a new batch of postcards would be available soon, including Christmas-themed styles. There is a certain adventurous fun to being the first in your area to populate the Hipster website with your own local postcards. I hope you can appreciate this app. It’s super fun for writers and us citizen journalists!
