One challenge of building a photo-sharing community is making sure that those photos are beautiful -- which is hard to do when your app isn't as nice as the photos it hosts. Mobile-based photo sharing app EyeEm has released an update for its Android app (s goog) that puts photos from its photographers front and center.
"We want to be there for all of the different things that mobile photographers do, from taking the photo to sharing it in a community to selling images," said Markus Spiering, who was Flickr's(s YHOO) head of product before joining EyeEm in April of this year.
The Berlin-based company says that it has 10 million users -- more than 50 percent within the U.S. -- and half of the user base is on Android. Spiering said that the heavy use from Android phones meant the company prioritized the latest update for that platform. He adds that similar updates to iOS(s AAPL) will roll out later this year.
The new Android app, which Spiering said was redone from the ground up, eliminates overlays and cropping. Every photo in the app can be viewed in full resolution, as tapping on the photo not only enlarges it, but also fills in the extra pixels. The new app also prioritizes "missions" contests on the app that reward winning photographers with prizes, including one the company announced Wednesday with Uber. The new app uses push notifications to alert users of new missions (there can be as many as ten running on the site at once) and keeps them at the forefront of the app.
EyeEm has been toying with the idea of a photo marketplace for years, but Spiering says it will finally come to fruition later this year, building off of a partnership with Getty that allows users to make revenue from their work. It's not clear yet exactly how the marketplace will factor into EyeEm, but the new app feels a lot like a showroom for mobile photographers to display their content.