JOIN USA look into a picture perfect world
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs’. As someone rightly said so, what if there was a destination or platform where one can find mesmerising photos on a variety of topics? Well, that’s exactly what ‘galleri5’, one of the latest trending apps in the city caters to.
It is a platform available on iOS, Android and the web where one can discover travel destinations, dishes to cook, fashion ideas to experiment with and much more through beautiful photos.
Movin Jain, co-founder of the app and a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad, was craving to start something of his own just like his friend and dormmate Rahul.
The latter had travelled to Argentina with his wife recently and was fortunate enough to capture a rare photograph of a glacier calving.
When he shared this photo on Facebook, almost no one noticed it amidst photos of him and his wife, their selfies and other pictures that showed them enjoying the trip.
Rahul realised that platforms like Facebook were places for his friends to observe his life and keep in touch with him. Getting inspired or amazed by beautiful photos was not something one came to such communities for.
The duo discussed how they could provide a platform to harness the potential of user generated photographs to create an immersive (creating a 3D image that appears to surround the user) discovery platform.
“With the many advanced smartphone cameras, people were taking amazing photos of things they did. These photos could be shared to inspire people even outside their friends’ circle. We surveyed almost 1000 people and found that this idea resonated with many. This is when we founded ‘galleri5’,” says Movin.
The photos can be added by a person as well as others including people outside their existing social networks. And it’s not about the number of followers one has, it’s about building a virtual community of people who love to discover the world through pictures.
“The pictures are curated through crowdsourcing — any user can categorise another person’s photo by ‘hi5ing’ it to relevant galleries. The experience is further ‘gamified’ through the concept of ‘karma’ which rewards users every time they upload a picture and/or help in curating a picture,” elaborates Movin on the concept of the app.
The app is available to people throughout the world and lets one add photos from their phone or computer storage, or from their Facebook and Instagram accounts. It helps one discover and follow galleries on topics you might like.
“As soon as you open the app, you see a feed full of topics that interest you with amazing photos under each topic,” says Movin.
And how has the response to the app been so far? “Coming up with anything new is not easy and requires innovation coupled with effort. I am happy to say that the ‘galleri5’ is seeing a constant rise in users every month. There are more than 6,000 photos on different topics on the app today,” states Movin.
So what are their future plans and how do they see it placed in the future? “We have enhanced the discovery features of the platform. A new feature now helps one discover 100 new locations around Bengaluru. In the future, we plan to add location based discovery to help people find things around them wherever they are,” adds Movin.
“In fact, the team is also refining user experience with features like image recognition and a camera with built-in tips to help one take better photographs.