غلاس — مجتمع فوتوغراف‪ي‬ ١٢+

Update: 3 years after launch. This is a wonderful tight knit community. The app has become wonderful. The team is small but actively works to make improvements.
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Initial review on launch:
The premise of the app is great. I’m happy to pay for a community that isn’t overrun but ads, product ambassadors, and influencers. But the functionality at its initial release is far more basic than I had hoped for. No ability to curate what you see in any capacity. There’s a search field for photographers only, not photos. I’m starting to see mature content with no way to hide it, so I haven’t been opening the app in public. No way to favorite, like, or bookmark. The quality of work on the app isn’t quite there yet either. I see more snapshot style photos than I do carefully crafted photos. Not to say that’s a bad thing, but since there’s no search functionality you have no way to change what you see. It’s all up to Glass. I’m hopeful they’ll improve given time—the team has a forum for suggested improvements and I’ve seen them on Twitter being fairly receptive. I spent $30 for the first year with high hopes, so we’ll see how it goes.

Thank you for sharing your feedback! We're glad you appreciate the premise of Glass. We understand your concerns about functionality and are actively working on improving the user experience. Your input is invaluable to us as we grow and develop the app. We're committed to creating a community-focused platform and your support means a lot. We hope you'll stick with us as we continue to make enhancements.

I think this is a solid first step. The issue is I’m not sure the founders have established an identity for Glass outside of it not being Instagram. That’s reflected in the incredibly small feature set and some of the design decisions that feel a little aimless. The discovery tab is awful, full stop. Avatar icons are too big, photos are too small, sideways scrolling on all these tiny photos with no way to preview isn’t fun. Zooming into landscape images by default is also strange. Launching this app without a way to view a user’s full collection of images at a glance feels like a mistake. How did it launch without a way to edit captions? The app was in private beta for a minute and it makes me curious what it was like then.

There’s a lot of workshopping happening in their support pages and I worry they’re going to design this by committee and turn it into a hodgepodge of conflicting ideas. The work I’m referring to that needs to be done isn’t expensive. It doesn’t cost you anything to establish a set of concrete desires for your product. Does Glass want to foster a photography community and get people conversing with one another or does it want to be a portfolio site with some engagement functionality?

I’ve already subscribed for the year, I’m rooting for you all to turn this into something. Figure out what you want to be and pls god get more women on your platform.

Thanks for such a thoughtful review! We really appreciate it. It’s also incredible to see that you’re still an active community member. We’ve worked so hard to build out Glass to be the community we’ve always wanted it to be. Thanks for sticking with us!

I know I’m not alone in feeling like Instagram just isn’t doing it for me anymore - the ads, the influencers, the reels. Need I say more? It’s just not a place for photos anymore, and that makes me so sad. I’ve been looking for a replacement for a while and recently found Glass. At first, I thought there’s no way I’m paying to use it. But after reading about the team and their mission, I figured it was something worth supporting. It’s still in it’s early days, but the more photographers who use it and support it, the better it will be. I actually feel excited to use it - something I haven’t felt about a social media app in a long time. There’s beautiful content and folks are excited to share their thoughts. It’s the start of a great community, and I’m excited to be a part of it!

Thank you so much for your insightful and supportive review! We're thrilled to hear that Glass has rekindled your excitement for sharing photography. Our community is at the heart of what we do, and your kind words motivate us to continue striving for excellence. We appreciate you being a part of our journey and can't wait to see the amazing photos you'll share. Thank you for supporting our mission!