Anyone who has ever had a photo opportunity with friends, whether it’s an unforgettable bachelorette party, a trip to Vegas or meeting a favorite band after a concert, knows how difficult it can be to get copies of the photos. iPhone (News - Alert) users have not had to rely on broken promises to e-mail photos or upload them to Facebook later thanks to the photo-sharing app Flock. Now, Flock is “flocking” to Android (News - Alert), bringing Android users the same benefits.
The Flock app works by scanning camera photos for matching time, date and location of Facebook (News - Alert) friends, merging the photos into a single album and then sending the involved parties a push notification that an album has been created. Although this may create worry for some users who have photos that they would rather not have made available to their friends, all reports indicate that the algorithm used is very advanced.
While this doesn’t ensure that a photo snapped around the same time as a group event won’t get sent by accident, the chances appear to be very slim. From available reports, the worst users have to fear is sending a photo that they don’t look their best in from a series of group photos. Flock ensures that friends won’t have to rely on each other’s busy schedules to obtain photos that, inevitably, the photo-snapping party moves to the next day’s “to do” list before they are forgotten altogether.
According to The Next Web, Bump, the company behind Flock, found that 95 percent of photos taken were never shared, “locked away on a friend’s phone, never to be seen again.” It estimates that Flock has enabled users to view more than twenty photos from friends that they would not otherwise have seen.
After the announcement that Instagram will now be selling its users’ photos to advertisers, with deleting accounts serving as the only opt-out option, sharing photos privately is likely to increase in popularity, making the timing of Flock’s announcement one that couldn’t have been planned any better.