Hipstamatic axes most of staff to focus on art, creativity

Hipstamatic, the company behind the $1.99 iPhone app that allows jaded scenesters to stylize their digital photos so that they look like snaps recovered from shoeboxes found in their grandmothers' attics, has laid off most of its employees. The Next Web was first to report that the firm has let go all but five of its core …

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh

"Hipstamatic was founded as a lifestyle and culture brand that happened to make software". There's your problem, at the top. Maybe if the company was organized to do software that happens to cater to the lifestyle and culture market then it would have been more successful.

[Wyrdness]

Re: Eh

So they've ditched making software and have gone back to just being a 'lifestyle and culture brand'. So what exactly does than entail and how is it supposed to make more money than software?

[MrT]

"to focus on art, creativity..."

... and making money?

I never thought they were the mobile equivalent of GQ, but did like the range of filters Hipsta gives. However, it does feed the 'instantaneousness' nature of things these days - point, click, effects, upload within a few minutes. They lose control of it all with the last step, which is why it will be more of a "lifestyle and culture" choice because most will be happy with the all-inclusive Picasa, Facebook/Instagram, etc.

[Tom 35]

Re: Eh

Facebook paid a pile of cash for the other guys, that's plan one shot to hell. Now they have to find another sucker with too much money to buy them.

[Andy]

one of the first apps i got for my iphone and what an app it is.. i only wish instagram had the amount of filters that hipsta has

[Rob Moir]

"Hipstamatic was founded as a lifestyle and culture brand that happened to make software."

I don't find anything funny in people losing their jobs but I have to highlight this quote - it's everything that's wrong with this and many other recent web2.0/app businesses in a nutshell... if these people can't take their business seriously then why should anyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hipstagram, instamatic

I see what you did there! (Actually I'm faking the sarcasm and really think it's quite funny. No, seriously.)

[Destroy All Monsters]

No! I do not understand!

Is it Instagram and Hipstamatic or Instamatic and Hipstagram? I didn't even know there were two campanies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No! I do not understand!

Neither did I until I read the article and was actually forced to look it up... and it was only then that I fully appreciated the snide hipster-bashing of the article! (And there may be a lot hipster-bashing going on but never enough.)

[Graham Dawson]

Re: No! I do not understand!

I was bashing hipsters before it was popular.

[Heff]

We havent been making enough money!

No, because Insta said "here's Hipsta, for free" and completely destroyed your ability to grow, and while they ballooned like a cancer in your marketplace you did absolutely nothing.

I feel sorry for the engineers and designers being subject to the failure and incompetency of this kind of management, but hey; better off out of it.

[Aaron Em]

Oh, man

Making fun of hipsters is so 2007.

[mraak]

Re: Oh, man

Ok hipster.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Oh, man

Making fun of hipsters was hip before the Great Recession?

[Charles Manning]

Like black

Hipster bashing is always in style.

That is especially true for those that think they should be surgically attached to a money supply just for trying to be hip.

[Anonymous Coward]

Allying your income to a fashion is always stupid. Unless you're still there when it becomes fashionable again, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fashion?

meh.

No idea about Hipstamatic - heard of it. Instamatic? who are they?

Do they make Instagram?

I use that, but don't give a monkeys who makes it, nor what they may make next.

I just use it to take daft photo's and bore the shit out of other people with them.

It's like a 70's holiday slideshow, where the photographer showing the photo's is the only one not asleep.

The difference is, you can bore more people.

Having said that, there are some gems amongst the tripe - it's just really hard to find them.

And what's fashion got to do with this anyway?

Well, better sign off, got to go down the post office to get my pension, cheers, Grandad.

[Dropper]

Heh

I had no idea that people actually pay for apps.. is it because you feel sorry for them or do you feel some sort of guilt over the number of Amiga games you copied as a teenager? It's like people think these are toys that have actual value rather than re-hashes of junk we nostagically remember as being good on our Spectrums and BBCs.

[Gary Riches]

Re: Heh

Of course they do you bell end. Not everyone is a free loading little prick.

[blamblamblam]

key mistake = brand name: Hipsters don't like being called "Hipsters"

IMHO one of the key mistakes of Hipstamatic was the brand name: Hipsters generally don't like being called "Hipsters": they like being called artists, rebels, mavericks, etc. Instagram sounds vaguely retro and analogue which is of course achingly cool. Using Hipstamatic makes you sound like you're a slave of fashion who can't actually take photos, so just colours his iPhone captures in a trendy way to hide the fact.

[Senior Ugli]

Re: key mistake = brand name: Hipsters don't like being called "Hipsters"

its true. Its like..that app is trying way too hard man