I joined Instagram recently after getting an iPhone for the first time. I love the iPhone, although I’m still struggling to text and type more quickly — I was just faster with the actual keys on my old Blackberry than I am on a small touch pad.
I’m enjoying Instagram. Click here to find and follow me. I have a lot of friends who automatically have their Instagram photos shared to Facebook and/or Twitter, but I don’t see too many advantages to doing that. With so many Facebook contacts, I don’t feel the need to explose my whereabouts all the time to all of them. If Instagram is updated in real time, it really does reveal where you are and when you are there — if you label the location or if it’s one so recognizable.
Using Instagram, I feel forced to be more discerning and observant than I am when I’m shooting with a camera. I can take hundreds of photos on a typical trip out with my camera, and I have the luxury of finding and editing the best shots later. With Instagram, I find myself wanting to capture a single image of a precise moment. I’m following about 130 people right now, which gives me a stream of new photos that convey a world of beauty and experience in a way that Facebook itself cannot.
Also, at least one person has actually noticed that I removed my Music Calendar from the menu at the top of the page. The idiosyncratic calendar can still be found in the right sidebar (over there —->>>>), but I’ve disabled the function that creates new posts every time I post a gig. In part, this is just to save myself a little time — it always takes 10 to 20 minutes to post an entry if I’m including links to clips, videos, and so forth. Of course, it shouldn’t have to take that long, but venues in Savannah do a terrible job of promoting some of their shows. I just want to get a promising gig on my calendar, which would be a lot easier if the venues or the performers did even the most basic PR for themselves and provided easy access to the following: a brief bio, a usable pic, an audio and/or video clip.
More on the issue of poor promotion in an upcoming post . . .
I’m not teaching this summer, so I’ll probably try to experiment with some new things on Savannah Unplugged. I’m still interested in additional contributors and maybe occasional guest posts, so hit me up at billdawers[at]comcast.net if you have any thoughts on that.
If you are interested in keeping up with this blog more regularly, you have two best options:
1. Subscribe with your email. You can do that in the right sidebar. (Over there ——>>>>)
2. Like Savannah Unplugged on Facebook. After clicking “Like”, hover your cursor over the word and you’ll see a menu that includes “Get Notifications”. Click on that too, and you’ll literally get a little red notification every time that Facebook page has a new post — generally just a couple per day.
Here’s one of my recent posts to Instagram:
