There’s a strange problem now for app developers that’s only going to get worse: there are simply too many apps. And with this over abundance, you not only have to compete against rival services, you have to fight for screen space and the short attention span of an app-pummeled user.
Still, out of all this overflow, some apps manage to catch our attention and that’s where Backspaces comes into play. Its creators, Dmitri Cherniak, Adrian Sanders and Wylie Conlon, first caught our eyes with their open source Instagram experiment, and now they’re back with a much larger and more ambitious project: Backspaces wants to be the app that helps you tell your stories, using just photos and text.
It’s a bold goal, but that doesn’t mean its journey is impossible by any means. Let’s dive right into the app, so you can find out if it’s your cup of tea.
Post download, the on-boarding process is polished and simple, walking you through instructions, signing up, etc. Then you’re presented with a stream of what’s been made.
To navigate, swipe right from off the screen or tap your username (I snagged “H“), this will let you see your feed, create a story, view your profile, see likes and comments and edit settings. Everything will feel entirely barren, but as you start using the app, it comes to life.
From there you might as well create your first story. Here’s mine (app not required to view), where I pulled together photos from a recent trip to a local coffee shop.
After that, I followed someone, liked a post, updated my profile…and believe it or not…started feeling as if I could use this app daily. The perfect way text and photos are combined transforms the app into a tool for looking back. It helps you save and share your favorite memories, and everything you make, of course, can be easily shared elsewhere across the Web.
We talked with Sanders to find out how he believes Backspaces fits in with everything else out there:
There are so many applications out there concerned with creating the stream from a sea of data points. All the services you described emphasize realtime. Backspaces is much more reflective. We want people to tell stories, like they do around dinner tables and at bars with friends.
There’s lots of great content already on Backspaces and we’re doing our best to make it easy to discover. We want great storytellers using our app to find their audiences fast. We’re also keen to make it easy to push your Backspaces stories to other platforms like WordPress or Tumblr, and those things are currently in the kicker.
Check out the app via the link below and let us know what you think in the comments!
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