One company’s stumble is another company’s opportunity. And so it should be no surprise to see competing photo-sharing sites attempt to benefit from the very public Instagram Terms of Service fall out, even if it could be argued that it was a much to do about nothing.
Enter: Tadaa, the iOS photo-sharing and editing app. After adding Instagram import just over two weeks ago, the Hamburg, Germany startup says that over 3 million photos have been ported from Facebook-owned Instagram. I’m also hearing that in the same period the app has picked up nearly 500,000 new users, bringing the total registered user base to just shy of 2 million. That’s a pretty nice Xmas present from a competitor.
Tadaa tries to differentiate itself from the plethora of mobile photo-sharing apps/services with an emphasis on ‘high end’ editing features aimed at the more serious so-called iPhoneographers, along with fostering its community with a number of social features and a heavy dose of — you’ve guessed it — gamification. The latter comes in the form of ‘tadaa Dollars’, a virtual currency rewarded for every like, comment, reply or re-share a user receives.
Less superficial are the social features in general. These include the ability to reply via a photo (rather than text), re-post photos (similar to a retweet on Twitter), and participate in competitions organised by Tadaa — a feature that is common in many competing offerings, such as EyeEm with its photo missions.
However, it’s the photo editing features where Tadaa really stands out. Firstly, they are all built-in for free and in fact users don’t even need to join the service to use the app as a photo editor alone. Included are dozens of filters and frames, along with its flagship HD Tilt Shift feature to alter the depth of field after the shot has been taken. Additionally, lighting, contrast and saturation can be adjusted, while upload image resolution can be as high as 1600 PX (longest edge), which the company claims is around three times higher than most of its competitors, including Instagram.
The trade-off, judging by the App Store reviews, is that in return for this added functionality the app requires a steeper learning curve, and as a result lacks the simplicity of Instagram (also missing is the simple use of hashtags). Your mileage, of course, may vary.