Everyone loves Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg loved it so much that he spent a billion dollars on it, which led other people who loved Instagram to write hilarious posts about the future of the service.
In the midst of all of this is Breakfast, a company that loved Instagram so much that it built a locative printer on top of its APIs.
Now it’s trying to take its prototype to market. We love the metaness of a printer that pulls faux-retro photos from the internet. We love it so much, we’re anointing it as our first “Kickstarter of the Week.”
Here’s how it works: You configure the printer with a hashtag or a location and connect it to the internet. It links itself up with instagram, looking for photos tagged with that hashtag or the location. When it finds one, it automatically prints it out.
Ever been to a wedding with disposable cameras on every table? Instaprint is kind of like that.This makes it perfect for parties and special events. Ever been to a wedding with disposable cameras on every table? Instaprint is kind of like that, and also kind of like a photobooth, but for the 21st century.
“We all still love holding a photo in our hand from a fun night or special moment, but we don’t want shoeboxes of them laying around,” says Andrew Zolty, Instaprint’s creative director, “Being able to take a modern-day platform and give back a small piece of this retro love is just the right amount to fill that small space in our hearts.”
Say what you will, this is still the best interface for browsing photos. Image courtesy of Breakfast.
Breakfast first developed a prototype of Instaprint in 2011. It came out of a water-cooler conversation about what could be done with Instagram’s newly released APIs.
“With Instagram being clearly inspired by the old Polaroid instants, we started chatting about how it would be cool to be able to turn Instagrams into those old prints,” says Zolty. They gave themselves two weeks to bring a prototype to SxSW.
The company chose Kickstarter as the path to market because it enables it to maintain complete control over every aspect of its work. Breakfast was built to embrace “the roller coaster of emotions that goes with growing a company that way,” he says.
The other big benefit to Kickstarter, Zolty says, is that it allows Breakfast to test the waters and ensure there is a demand before throwing its full weight into converting Instaprint from a prototype to a consumer product. At the moment, that test looks daunting, as Breakfast is still under half of its $500,000 funding goal with less than 10 days to go.
Whatever happens, Breakfast has already started renting out the prototypes. Instaprint has made an appearance at the Grammys and concerts at Madison Square Garden.
As for Instagram’s new owner, Zolty strikes a cautiously optimistic note. The prospect of access to Facebook’s 845 million users is “amazing,” but not if it changes the product. “Like most dedicated Instagram users out there, we hope the product retains its simplicity and is transitioned in the smoothest way possible.”
You can support the project and pre-order your own Instaprinter on their Kickstarter Page. If you just want to rent the printer, you can find out more at Instaprint.me. via wired.com
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