AOL has acquired the photo-sharing app Hipster for “low seven figures,” according to TechCrunch and this may signal the decline of the photo-sharing app boom.
For those who don’t know, Hipster is an iOS app which lets you send “digital postcards” via your phone. This could then tie into your Facebook feeds for sharing and viral stuff, I guess. The Hipster team will join AOL Mobile, improve upon the product and do things like evangelize AOL’s mobile platforms.
You have to wonder if this signals an end to the photo-sharing app bubble. Instagram has more than 27 million users without even having an Android app and it clearly looks like it will succeed but the host of other photo-sharing companies may fall by the wayside. Take a look at Hipster, PhotoVine, Color and a host of others as a bit of evidence.
That doesn’t mean people don’t love to share and view images though, as judged by the success of Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook’s photo features. Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich is bringing a ton of nice photo editing and filtering features to all the devices it runs on, so maybe we’re getting to the point where we don’t really need standalone apps unless they offer something of real value.
[Via TechCrunch]