Against Digital Sharecropping
I like being free and independent.
I like the idea behind Instagram, but not the proprietary nature of it.
I don’t like giving up my rights to work I create. Even when it’s just a little photo of a little moment captured with my iPhone. I dislike, as Nicholas Carr called it on his blog, “digital sharecropping”. And, of course, now the ads have finally started on Instagram, solidifying my discomfort with it. Why should I let them profit from even the smallest amount of my work without compensation?
Well, now, there’s a new program called Pressgram, that’s a free iPhone app, which allows an Instagram-like experience, but uploads the photos to my WordPress blog. You can upload them to your WordPress.com blog, or, as I do, to my self-hosted WordPress blog. Word has it that there is an Android version in the works, too. It’s a new app, so there are some on-going refinements, but it really is a great start, I think.
Obviously, I’ve been using it here and at my other site, JKHoffman.com, so I believe in it. Yes, it took me a little fiddling to get the setting just the way I want and to sort out a couple other things, but, now that I have, I think this is going to work just fine. I can already see the difference in my site stats!
Anyway, worth checking out if you’re leary of another ad-supported system that lets you share, but not much else.
