This article was published on October 11, 2012

Let battle commence: This iOS app lets you challenge other Instagramers to see who has the best photos


Let battle commence: This iOS app lets you challenge other Instagramers to see who has the best photos

With more than 100m users and in excess of five billion photos shared, Instagram needs little introduction. Indeed, the apparent omnipresence of the retro-photo-filtering social networking app has led to countless third-party apps being built atop the Facebook-owned company’s API.

One such app is Duelpic, which hit the App Store a few weeks ago, letting Instagram users challenge their friends – as well as random users – to a photo contest using their library of pictures. Who decides? You, me…the whole Instagram community.

    

Once you’ve linked up your Instagram account, you’ll be invited to enter a category for the duel…there doesn’t seem to be a predefined list, which leaves it up to you to decide on the category…it could be sunsets, skyscrapers, food…you name it.

In terms of the opponent, well, it is obviously restricted by who currently has the app installed…it would perhaps be worth adding in a feature here to invite existing Instagram connections to install the app at the ‘Duel’ stage.

If you don’t want to start a duel, you can take up the offer of a duel by entering any of the existing ones listed – when you click it, you can import an image from your Instagram library, or take one with the camera.

In the main menu screen, you can sign-out, choose to vote on an existing duel (an option which takes you to a series of random duels) or view your own profile, which ultimately lists all the duels you’ve won, lost or tied.

We’re also told that Duelpic will allow companies to create sponsored duels, where they can create competitions for users to enter and win prizes.

“We built Duelpic to allow mobile photographers a way to show off their photos to a large audience in a way that is fun and engaging while also allowing brands to gain exposure,” explains Duelpic’s California-based developer Colby Nelson.

At the time of writing, Duelpic claims more than 6,000 user-created duels and 60,000 votes registered, “maintaining a 7% weekly growth rate in terms of revenue”. Now there’s an interesting little nugget, the app is apparently pulling in revenue already.

The app wasn’t always the most responsive to my touch, but it is a nice idea and it does sport a beautiful design and layout. Whether its attempts to gamify Instagram ultimately succeeds or not, well, this remains to be seen.

Duelpic | iOS

Feature Image Credit: ADEK BERRY/Getty Images

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