I LOVE Instagram, but…….. it’s going the way of other popular social media is going, and I’m losing the thing I loved about it in the first place. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry about it as it’s a business and they’re choosing to go in a different direction because they are chasing the audience and the money and if it was my business with shareholders I might well do the same. So I’ve recently started to look for a platform where I can share and admire photography, oh and mix a bit of video in there as well; because we’re creatives and we all want different mediums to express ourselves.
So what’s refreshing about Vero?
So the first thing I noticed when I joined Vero is it’s actually usable, and I don’t mean that in a horrible way but in a technical way (due to my background in tech). The platform is ready to accept your pictures (and other things; I like the way they’ve done this as well) and it’s ready for you to explore and like other people’s photographs. It feels very young and raw whilst at the same time having a developed and crafted feel to it (probably because a boat load of money was invested into it – I don’t know that for a fact, I’m just guessing), and it feels like Instagram did back in the early days.
“VERO is a place where everyone should feel safe to express themselves.”
I love this statement after all social media does have a bad rep for the way people get treated by other people, but that is one thing I do feel good about on Vero, that ‘community spirit’ that they push for is there! live and kicking, and I appreciate that and love to be involved in it.
Free for life
Now I know they say on the website that it is free for life at the moment for early adopters, and whilst I like that it is free, it almost puts me off to think that at some point, people are going to have to pay to use it; and I wonder how many people won’t sign up because of that statement (or how many people actually read that part 🤔). There must be other business models they could use so they don’t have to have adverts, but I feel this will become more like Flickr, etc. instead of something like Instagram, which worked so well for a reason, that reason being it wasn’t a paid platform for photographers; after all, photographers want their work to reach the masses and not just other photographers and in this world of 100’s of social media platforms, is another one really worth investing time and energy into developing if it doesn’t reach the masses or give you that social high 🤔 worth thinking about isn’t it.
Things I like to be able to do:
‘Love’ a comment, it’s not always necessary to reply to every comment, and in fact, it can be a bit awkward, so it would be great to find a way to like or love a comment.
Bookmarks are great but they need to be soooo much better, I want to be able to curate a collection of images and then I want to be able to share that collection so that I can collaborate with people.
A few little issues with bugs (well, on the Android version anyway), so it would be great if there was an easy report bug button so as a community, we can help evolve and develop the app to make it stand out.
Have a section for general, personal, unpolished work, BTS, etc. On other platforms (cough, cough) I would use stories to put bits about me where my audience could see into my world and what I was up to, but I didn’t want that distracting from my polished work, which I am proud of. After all, we all know as photographers that our worst work overshadows our best.
Final thoughts (at this current time)
Like all new(ish) platforms, I’m sure things will change over time, but for now, I’m excited to use this platform and interact with other creatives and hopefully (if they are listening), things on my ‘changes’ list might come to fruition, and this platform might become my daily driver (I hope so).
Check out Vero for yourself, and don’t forget to give us a follow: https://vero.co/terrylivesey
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