If you’ve already had too much of the selfie generation, wait until Automattic gets its experimental social network out of the lab. The company, more popular for creations such as the WordPress blogging platform and the Gravatar avatar service, has very silently launched a new social network called Seflies that is focused on one thing and one thing alone: sharing selfies.
The app has been out for a week now and, given how high profile WordPress is, it’s a bit curious that there has been barely any word about it, either from media or from Automattic itself. In a sense, that was intended as Selfies is both still in an experimental stage of development and, at the same time, itself a sort of experiment, going beyond the company’s usual products. That said, its origin isn’t exactly that divorced from company’s roots. The app originally started as a Gravatar app for Android, which also explains why the company targeted Android first before iOS.
In terms of features, there isn’t really anything special about Selfies, at least not yet. You can take a selfie with the app, do a bit of very basic editing, and upload it. The selfie then becomes part of a public stream of never-ending self photos. Think of it like an instagram dedicated solely to selfies. While the photos are indeed available to the public, the only way to actually view them would be through the app. Users can also delete whatever they’ve posted in case they think that their photo is a bit too embarrassing or inappropriate. You can also respond or comment on other people’s selfies by posting a selfie of your own, which Automattic expects to create all sorts of fun and mayhem.
Automattic does have greater plans for Selfies, from something basic like being able to filter through the currently one and only public stream to more fine-tuned features like photo filters ala Instagram. There is even a plan on taking the app to iOS depending on how the Android app performs. Given that the app is only noted to have download nubmers between 500 to 1,000, it’s not exactly encouraging. Then again, our Internet is already over-saturated with selfies, as much as it is with cat pics. Do we really need to put up a shrine dedicated to it?
Download: Selfies on Google Play Store
VIA: TechCrunch
What’s stopping people from uploading pictures of things other than their own face?
Change your profile picture,I hope you get that.
Interesting fact: Canon introduced its Selphy line of photo printers well before the word entered our lexicon.