Forget cloning one website, a group of people build a mashup of two of the web’s hottest startups : Pinterest + Instagram and they call it Pinstagram. Now I’m not a big Instagram user, but I have to admit a lot of Indonesians are so this service might actually be useful.
Pinstagram is an easy way to view instagram pictures on the web, developed by Silicon Valley-based Brandon Leonardo and Pek Pongpaet who jokingly talked about the possibility of building a “Pinterest for Instagram” as their weekend project. The media went nuts on Pinstagram, it was a sensational mashup and got featured by almost all tech publications online and offline, Wired, Forbes, RWW, they’re all over the place.
We got a chance to talk to founders Brandon Leonardo and Pek Pongpaet also with Aditya Herlambang, a third team member later joining the Pinstagram team. Herlambang also used to work as a Software Engineer at Pulse News, the iPad/iPhone news reader based in Silicon Valley.
When asked why inspired them to build the service, Pongpaet answered “It started out as a joke. We thought to ourselves what would happen if we combined the two hottest and fastest growing social networks right now: Pinterest and Instagram.”. Instagram’s 50+ million userbase is growing very fast worldwide but the service is optimized for mobile users and not for desktop usage, a gap Leonardo and Pongpaet decided to fill in.
The founders saw a value from the service they’re building since there’s no beautiful way to view Instagram on the web before Pinstagram. The founders are aiming for a much easier way to see many photos quickly, and like or comment on them as well as easier to share photos outside of Instagram.
And the users seems to love the idea Pinstagram brought up! Their number of user is growing incredibly fast. “Our user retention number is unbelievable, we were quite surprised that people kept on coming back to the site. We’ve been getting a lot of user feedbacks from our user that asks for new features.” said Aditya Herlambang, a member of the Pinstagram team responsible for building the iPad app.
So after providing the amazing desktop experience, the next natural step is to go tablet, yet another channel whom for Instagram also not optimized. The team decided that the iPad is the next big step for Pinstagram, “We’re about to release an iPad version of the app written by Aditya Herlambang. I think the iPad app is going to make a huge impact on how people look at their Instagram photos on their iPads. It’s by far one of the most beautiful apps on the app store” said Leonardo.
Although growing incredibly fast, the popularity of Pinstagram is very dependant with Instagram and its growing number of users. Pinstagram has place a huge bet on Instagram’s survival, and after the acquisition by Facebook it doesn’t seem very well for Pinstagram. “Pinstagram in the short-term future won’t change much. Initially we may add the ability for non-Instagram users to be able to use Pinstagram. Over the long term we’ll continue to address gaps in the Instagram feature-set where it makes sense and build the best way to view Instagram.” said Leonardo when asked about Pinstagram’s future.
