Now available on an iPhone near you… Pressgram.
Update: As with many great things in our ever changing technology environment, Pressgram has been abandoned. It was a great tool with much potential, but business realities forced it out of existence. I am researching possible replacement workflows and will report back if any viable options present themselves. RIP Pressgram :-(
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Having first a fourth generation iPod Touch and now an iPhone 5, I can honestly say that these devices are some of the most powerful tools the world has ever known. Imagine the total accumulated knowledge of human race in the palm of your hand. The ability to record still photos, HD video, and audio on a whim. Really mind blowing stuff.
Well, today I’m hear to tell you about an app that is going to be a complete game-changer for those that use iOS devices and are content creators. That app is called Pressgram, and I am so excited about it I have actually launched this blog ahead of schedule so I could tell you about it. I first learned about Pressgram through Pat Flynn’s excellent “Smart Passive Income” podcast and then contributed to its Kickstarter campaign. As development for the app progressed, I joined the Pressgram “Launch Team” and have been conspiring with others on the team to help catapult the app to success.
What makes Pressgram worth all this excitement? Simply put, it is an app that allows you to create images, share them, and publish them directly to your WordPress blog, all the while maintaining your rights as the author.
Let’s dig a little deeper…
Full Creative Control
Start with the Pressgram camera, or any one of the multitude of other camera apps available, and make your photograph. Follow that up with a little bit of post processing – Pressgram has built-in filters or use the app of your choice and simply import your finished photo to Pressgram. Once inside Pressgram, ad your caption information. Don’t be stingy here, take a little bit of time and do it right. It will pay off in the next step.
Publish to WordPress
That’s right, you can now publish your filtered photos directly to your WordPress blog. Instead of passing your valuable content off to some soul-sucking corporation with egregious Terms of Service, YOU maintain control over the publishing process. All of the written content that accompanies your image will also be available on your blog for Google to index (remember what I said about not being stingy with your captions). With Pressgram, your image sharing fun has the added benefit of generating content for your website. Remember, all of the content that you create has innate value, it should benefit you not Facebook.
Increase Pageviews
The general consensus in the Pressgram community is that the added content that Pressgram pushes to your blog will, in turn, generate a substantial increase in pageviews. While the service is far too young to see concrete evidence of this, I will be keeping an eye on my analytics and will post updates as more data becomes available. On thing I know for certain… adding images and text to your blog through Pressgram is far more likely to increase pageviews than having the same images and text languishing on a server over at Facebook/Instagram.
Continuity / Preservation of Data
As someone who has spent many years in the photo industry, I have a special appreciation for data integrity. I have seen many online services come and go over the years. Companies go out of business, terms of service change, moderators get upset and ban accounts. Any one of these situations could prove to be the undoing of your years of work processing and uploading images and text. With Pressgram, your images are pushed directly to your WordPress blog. They “live” on your server. You are no longer beholden to a corporation that does not have your best interests at heart. And most importantly, you are no longer a “digital sharecropper” – you tend your own fields of content and you reap the rewards.
Watermarking, etc.
Pressgram has watermarking functionality built right in to the system. For those that are concerned with orphan works legislation and value this feature, it is a huge benefit. For those who are less concerned, it is certainly not a requirement. I am somewhat torn on the subject. It is something that I will be delving into much more deeply here on the blog, but is probably a topic best left for another day.
I realize that this article sounds like an advertisement for Pressgram. I also realize that it is a brand new app that still has some growing pains to work through. But aside from the satisfaction of supporting a worthwhile endeavor, I am not getting a thing for writing this article. Pressgram is a free app. Also, I am confident that John Saddington, the developer, is hard at work adding new features and making the app better. So head over to the app store, download Pressgram, and take it for a spin. All the cool content creators are doing it.
