What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear “Facebook”? Do you think of farmvilles and café worlds? Do you ponder how life was better before the timeline profile page took over your old account? Or do you groan at the thought of how inappropriately the “like” button is clicked nowadays (i.e. “John Smith has fallen off board and broken shoulder”, Jim Jones likes this)?
When I hear “Facebook” I immediately think of its most positive feature: photosharing. With more than 300 million images uploaded on a daily basis, it’s a miracle it has taken someone this long to come up with an app that allows you to print your favourite images and collect them in a 20 page picture tome, similar to a high school year book (but without countless headshots of students sporting a half-hearted smile like they are about to cross border patrol).
The prospects for this literal face book are intriguing, especially if combined with the recent arrival of Instagram. The already massively popular photo sharing system has users turning pictures of trips down the pub into mini masterpieces, so imagine what can be achieved if you pick your personal favourite photographs and use Instagram to transform them into nostalgic celebrations of friendship. Now that would make a very artistic photo album!
It is rather telling that Mark Zuckerberg’s social media behemoth, so often accused of corrupting youths with its ultramodern take on social interaction (apparently it has something to do with being glued to a screen to chat with your chums), has looked to the past to deliver a new service that beautifully ties in with the long-running medium of print. It’s bound to please those who miss flicking through a good old-fashioned photo album, that’s for sure.