At a baby age of 3 years, Instagram was the first startup to become a $1 billion iOS app. Some might have questioned it’s valuation at the time, just like folks are doing now when Facebook attempted to buy another photo sharing app in Snapchat for a whopping $3 billion. But what folks forget is that Instagram made sharing photos easier on mobile. What’s more is they enabled anybody to take an ordinary boring picture of something and turn into something magical (and worth sharing) by using filters.
So while we’ve witnessed similar services like EyeEm pop up and other social networks such as Twitter add filters to their mobile applications – both of which are testament to the success of Instagram. We’re still left with a gap for transferring those beautiful Instagram photos to the offline world.
Superprints is a recently launched service out of Jönköping, Sweden which lets you print your photos and have them delivered to your home or the address of your friends or family.
How does Superprints work?
Users login using their Instagram account and are then taken to the Superprints dashboard where they are presented with their photos. Users then add the photos they want printed and shipped. Afterwards they’re taken to the checkout page to fill out their shipping address and credit/debit card details. After which they can expect delivery in 3-4 days within the EU.
When it comes to pricing, Superprints charges 0.39€ for each photo plus shipping costs at €3.90. However you’ll need to order a minimum of 15 photos in order to proceed to the checkout page. But with orders over 100 shipping is free of charge.
“We started working on Superprints about a year ago, but weren’t able to launch until a month ago,” said co-founder Chrille Peterson.
Launching Superprints
When asked why Superprints took a year to launch, Peterson replied, “We wanted to build and deliver a quality product we were proud of and user were happy to use.”
“It took some time to put all of the pieces of puzzle together. Some of the important things included proof of concept, figuring out the printing, packaging and the logistics of everything involved.”
Superprints was about to launch during the time Instagram updated their brand guidelines that banned apps from using “Insta” and “Gram” in their name. Peterson told me that they were originally called “Supergram” but needed to through the process of legally changing and updating their name to Superprints. Which obviously took some time to get ready before they launched.
After trying out the service myself, Superprints delivers a smooth and simple interface, all the way through signing up, choosing images and checking out. I was also surprised at how quickly it was able to pull my images from Instagram, there was no lag whatsoever, and it felt almost instantaneous – although this might depend on the speed of your internet connection.
What to expect next?
But while the photo printing service has been out for a little over a month, Peterson shared some of his plans for developing the platform further development.
“We would like to cover more countries and also integrate other photo sharing services such as Narrative (formerly Memoto) and Facebook’s API.”
So while we’re shooting photos, storing and sharing them online – Superprints helps bridge the gap between the offline and online world. The service is also ideal for when you’re travelling and want to send your globetrotting images back home to your loved ones. Overall Superprints delivers a simple, yet efficient interface that lets you proudly hang your Instagram images on a wall to showcase them to your friends without having to pull out your smartphone.
