The original MVP of Dubble launched on iOS all the way back in fall\u00a02013<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 at a time when Frontback was still splicing up people\u2019s selfies. When I tested it out\u00a0then Dubble-blended photos\u00a0felt organic and interesting\u00a0(I still use one of its serendipitously dreamy hybrid cityscapes for the header on my Twitter profile<\/a>), but the app was also\u00a0rough round the edges, slow to process images and saddled\u00a0with\u00a0a clunky UI.<\/p>\n Since that debut, faddish\u00a0photo-sharing community Frontback has failed to go the distance, though selfie-taking and photo sharing of course persist. Photo filtering\u00a0trends also continue to evolve\u00a0\u2014 they\u00a0now include, for example, AI-powered style transfer apps, like Prisma, which can turn a boring snap\u00a0into a mock work of art at the push of a button.<\/p>\n So will there still be much of an appetite for manually blending photos with other people\u2019s selfies and snaps\u00a0to co-create and share digital double exposures? Frankly, Scott doesn\u2019t seem entirely\u00a0sure. But he says he\u2019s hopeful there\u2019s a niche yet\u00a0engaged community to be created here \u2014 and a sustainable one, given the reach\u00a0of smartphone apps. \u201cWithin a year I would like to hit maybe 20,000 to 30,000 daily active users,\u201d he says of Dubble v2. \u201cI think this is a good goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a few I dubbled earlier\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The original Dubble app amassed\u00a0a registered user base of around 270,000\u00a0users over its run, before\u00a0cloud-hosting costs forced the by-then bootstrapping team\u00a0to take it offline, having burnt through their friends and family seed round, and while they re-engineered a leaner and faster v2 \u2014 helped with advice and contacts made after\u00a0being selected for\u00a0Newcastle-based accelerator Ignite<\/a>, completing that bootcamp program in\u00a0early 2015.<\/p>\n The new version of the app lets users choose who to Dubble their single photos with \u2014 via a new feature called \u2018Dubble with me\u2019 \u2014 rather than this only being randomly selected, as it was in v1. Scott\u2019s\u00a0hope is that this selective ability for co-creation will be the key to scaling an engaged community. And\u00a0while he concedes\u00a0there\u00a0are plenty of other double exposure apps out there, he argues social focus sets Dubble\u00a0apart. So the aim is to build a sharing community, not just offer\u00a0another photo-processing tool. Which means, as before, users of the app can choose to publish their co-creations to a public feed where others can find them.<\/p>\n Another feature that\u2019s new in v2 is\u00a0the ability\u00a0to lightly edit a dubble to make it a bit lighter or darker \u2014 which again gives users a little more control over the resulting creation. While an overhauled remix\u00a0section, now called the Lab, is where\u00a0the random dubbling takes place, with users choosing singles from their own photo roll, editing them lightly if they wish before tapping through to the blending screen to see the first random remix. If you\u00a0don\u2019t like the result,\u00a0there\u2019s a redubble button that can be used 30 times in 24 hours\u00a0to freely remix with other\u00a0random singles (an in-app paid\u00a0upgrade delivers\u00a0unlimited redubbling).<\/p>\n Amusingly for a photo app there\u2019s no camera view \u2014 Scott says they removed this as most people were selecting pre-shot photos to dubble anyway but also they wanted to\u00a0create a quality bar, and stop users snapping boring\u00a0test photos of their computer keyboard and\u00a0polluting the singles pool. After all, every single uploaded to the app has the chance to be reused again and again \u2014 to create\u00a0other Dubbles.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the app, a Discover tab shows a manually curated feed of content, and gives users a visual way to track down other (unknown) users to Dubble with. Each user profile in the app has a\u00a0\u2018Dubble with me\u2019 button to enable\u00a0that. Users can also obviously\u00a0choose to blend their photos with their friends\/followers\u2019 content, too, via the same route.<\/p>\n And while such overtly arty photo-blending might be too hipster to excite much\u00a0mainstream interest, the huge\u00a0scale\u00a0of the global smartphone market does at least offer\u00a0the chance for Dubble to locate and connect enough fellow feelers\u00a0to turn a niche interest\u00a0into a\u00a0financially self-sustaining business down the line. Plus the app undeniably offers a super easy way to\u00a0repurpose the raw material every single smartphone user has languishing on their camera rolls: photos, lots and lots of photos \u2014 turning what can be\u00a0mundane shots into imagery that\u2019s at turns surreal and ethereal. And that\u2019s potentially pretty powerful.<\/p>\n\n
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<\/p>\nPhoto 15-03-2017, 01 43 54<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
<\/p>\nPhoto 15-03-2017, 01 44 52<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
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<\/p>\nDubble<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
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