A screenshot of when you login to Inkstagram. Screen shot provided by Josh Inkenbrandt.
Editor’s Note: Earlier today, Josh Inkenbrandt, currently a Kansas City resident, announced that he has taken a position with Rdio and will be moving to San Francisco in two weeks.
Josh Inkenbrandt makes cool stuff. While watching Inkenbrandt’s video clips like “Music In Hard Times,” “A Day In The Life Of,” or “Simply Lemonade” and using his trendy apps like Thriftable or Inkstagram, people may think Inkenbrandt has a ton of time on his hands. However, with a personal website that states, “I’m a husband, father, developer, designer, videographer,” Inkenbrandt is, by all indications, a Q&A elite.
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I first encountered Josh back in May 2010 at Big Omaha. Immediately after we were introduced by a mutual friend, Brandon Ratzlaff, one characteristic stuck out about Josh: he is a huge nerd. Even as we shook hands for the first time, Josh cradled a laptop in his left hand. As we sat in KANEKO waiting for the first Big Omaha presenter, I stole a glance at his laptop screen only to notice a black screen with lines of code waiting to be deployed.
A highlight among Josh’s achievements is his recent creation of the previously mentioned website, Inkstagram, a site for browsing and managing photos from Instagram. In the email interview below, Josh tells us more about Inkstagram and how it brought over 5,000 active users in a short period of time.
Silicon Prairie News (SPN): Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Josh Inkenbrandt: I’m just a guy who loves to make cool stuff. I was born in Florida but spent most of my life traveling from state to state. Because of all the traveling we did, my parents figured it would be best to homeschool us. I think later on, being homeschooled really helped me cultivate a desire to do things independently, which led to a desire to try to create all the things I could think up.
(Left, Inkenbrandt, photo from twitter.com/joshink)
SPN: Instagram is a cool iPhone app that makes amateur photos look beautiful. What inspiried the idea of creating a web interface for Instagram?
Inkenbrandt: I received an email from Instagram letting me know that their API was now ready (I had requested to be notified when they announced that they were going to release one). Instagram’s Achilles heel, so to speak, was the fact that they had no website to browse your feed, view your photos or follow people with. It all had to be done through their iPhone app. So lying before me was an opportunity to fix that problem. That’s why I created it.
SPN: You mentioned Instagram’s API came out within days before you launched Inkstagram. How long did it take to implement the first version after you received the email from Instagram?
Inkenbrandt: The first version, http://instagram.joshink.com, was finished and live within two days after the API was released. I think I spent about 10 hours on the first version. It didn’t let you comment or like photos, but you could follow or unfollow people.
Google Analytics telling glimpse of Inkstagram’s number of visitors. Screenshot provided by JoshInkenbrandt.
SPN: Initially, how many users started using Inkstagram?
Inkenbrandt: The first couple days were kinda slow. I think there may have been 100-200 users up until about five days after I launched it. Then a few well-know bloggers and designers like Shawn Blanc, Cameron Moll and Brian Hoff mention[ed] the site. I ended up with 2,000+ users and over 10,000 unique visits in three days time. To date I’ve had over 100,000 impressions and over 150,000 interactions (people liking, commenting and following/unfollowing).
SPN: So, how did Inkstagram get popular in a short amount of time?
Inkenbrandt: There was a need; a really big one. But also, getting some recognition from some of the top bloggers and designers in the community didn’t hurt.
SPN: What programming language, frameworks and other tools did you use to build Inkstagram?
Inkenbrandt: It’s built in Python, using Tornado. For the database, I use MongoDB, and it’s hosted on Rackspace Cloud. However most of the application runs on the client side, which is written in JavaScript using MooTools.
SPN: Any future plans for Inkstagram?
Inkenbrandt: Yes, I would like to fix a number of bugs first, but I’d like to add some tools for creating cool things with your photos. I already created a tool for generating a background for your Twitter account using all your Instagram photos. Check it out: http://inkstagram.com/bg.
SPN: Are you working on any other side projects?
Inkenbrandt: Well, I also run a service called Thrift. It’s a service that makes it easy to create promotions which reward people with a coupon when they share the promotion on Twitter or Facebook.
