Position Paper #1

 Internet Investors

      As trends in society are constantly flowing and changing, internet startups and companies are constantly having to push the envelope in marketing and structure in order to become bigger and better. One genre of mobile apps that I notice actively updating and upgrading is the photo editing genre. For many people, social media is no longer as simple as posting a picture and going about your day. As the job of “social media influencer” is becoming more and more popular, the quality and editing of pictures seen on sites like Instagram and Facebook are becoming more and more advanced every day. This new and growing market has become a feeding frenzy for companies creating apps that make editing pictures easier and better.

            In the past, when the popular social media sites were just starting out, most people used the editing section on their mobile device or the preset editing choices that came included in whatever social media they were using. Now, one hardly ever hears of someone actually using the editing that comes with the sites. Instead, it has become extremely common for people to have multiple editing apps on their phones that they use in order to get the “perfect” picture. In even more recent times, editing photos using other apps has become almost essential in the age of technology we are in. Not only is the technology we have now more advanced than ever, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine that came with it forced people to rely on technology more than they ever have.

            Most careers are operating mostly or fully online and editing photos has become a necessary tool used in everyday life. For example, many teachers are now being expected to teach their students online through Zoom meetings. How can an elementary teacher keep the attention of 20 second-graders as they are surrounded by distractions coming from every way? Visualizations is one of the best ways to keep students’ attention while also learning. Whether it be shown in a Word document or a separate website, editing photos and making them visually pleasing has become so important, and I believe that photo editing apps are recognizing and taking advantage of the incredible market they have before them.

            I want to examine two of the most popular photo editing apps that I often see people use for their social media pictures. The two apps are VSCO and Adobe Lightroom and, while they are not necessarily start-ups, I believe that they fall into the internet investors group because they are constantly adding new improvements in order to make their app the best that it can be.

 VSCO was founded by Joel Floury and Greg Lutzein 2011 with headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area. Joel was a commercial and wedding photographer while Greg worked as a Creative Director for different design agencies. Joel and Greg used their combination of photography and technology to create one of the top 100 highest grossing photo editing apps in the United States. Adobe Lightroom was created by Mark Hamburg and Andrei Herasimchuk in2002, but the full retail version was not released until 2007. Hamburg is a veteran software engineer who has worked at Adobe since 1990 and Herasimchuk is an interface designer responsible for Adobe Creative Suite. While the app was largely created around the concept of photoshop, it has also become popular in the simple editing of photos.

One of the main reasons I wanted to analyze these two apps, and also one of the main reasons I believe they are staying ahead of the curve in terms of marketing and popularity, is their use of presets. Presets, in context to photo editing, are digital packages in which the editing settings have already been set in a specific way in order to give the photo a certain look. For example, an app may have a “warm” preset that makes the photos automatically look golden or sunny without the user actually having to do anything. When a user opens up VSCO or Lightroom and begins editing, there is an option to use one of the app’s presets in addition to or instead of editing the picture themselves.

While this may not seem like anything particularly exciting, many people are more attracted to settings like this because it means they do not have to do as much work on the photo and they get a great edit as well. These two apps do have a decent selection of free presets that anyone on the app can use, but they also sell more advanced presets. VSCO generally sells its presets in bundles running for roughly $20 on average, while Lightroom’s bundles run for about $35 and their singles anywhere from $10-15. Not only do these apps advertise their presets in-app, but also in many other forms of social media. I have personally come across a few influencers that I follow on Instagram who have partnered with VSCO to make their own preset pack and sell it. Sponsorships like these open up a completely new market because the app is now reaching into more pools of people that could become customers.

These two apps both have distinct reputations and characteristics about them that make them popular in different crowds. In general, most of the people that I hear or read about promoting Lightroom are professional or aspiring photographers. I would say that Lightroom has a more professional feel to it in terms of layout and design, while VSCO gives off more of a young and fun vibe. I have seen many photographers talk about how Lightroom is a great tool to use on professional portraits and photoshoots in order to elevate the quality of the photos. On the other hand, VSCO is typically more popular among teenagers-young adults and social media influencers. In 2019, there was even a trend going around about ‘VSCO girls’ being their own aesthetic. This aesthetic was commonly characterized by shell necklaces, Birkenstocks, messy buns, and the beach. Clearly, the two apps have audiences and characteristics that seem to be polar opposites, but I think that only helps them in terms of relevancy.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, photo editing apps, both startups and veteran brands, are rapidly rising with regard to popularity, relevancy, and necessity. While I only touched on two of the more popular apps, there are many more out there that are continuously striving to make their brand and company stand out among other internet investors. I can only assume that there will be more and more of these types of apps coming out soon, but I think that VSCO and Lightroom have a pretty great chance of staying at the top of the charts if they continue to play to their demographic and advance their marketing strategies as technology as a whole becomes bigger and better.