The Instasnoop interface—see who you mutually follow in your network, and bookmark users on your Snooplist without having to follow them (image via the app store)
We’ve all been there—68 weeks deep into an Instagram profile, sneering at the use of Toaster, when your finger accidentally double taps and the whole world comes crumbling down. An accidental like for any seasoned lurker is embarrassing, to say that least. Now there’s an app for that. Enter Instasnoop, a third party app designed specifically with next-level lurking in mind. The option to like an image is gone, so you’ll never experience the aforementioned situation. You can also collate lists of people you love to lurk without having to follow their profiles. You can add images to your ‘Snooplist’ too, as well as being able to zoom in on photos, and see who you and another user mutually follow… Creepy? Genius? You decide. We spoke with Instasnoop creator, Sydney-based Olivia Orchowski—model by day, app developer by night.A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Sep 10, 2015 at 7:34pm PDT
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Have you had any other awkward experiences with lurking, like accidentally thinking you know someone in real life when in actual fact you only know them online?This actually happens far too often for my liking… I became friends with a girl at uni because I couldn’t figure out where we’d met, when in actual fact I’d just been on her Instagram page. Of course, I have zero brain to mouth filter so I told her that I’d been on her page before. Luckily she thought it was just as hilarious as I did (or did she? I actually don’t quite know).What was the process like developing and launching the app? Have you had any previous experience with app design/development?The process was relatively easy in that we had a good little team, but there definitely were speed bumps along the way. I’d never had any experience with app design or development, so after I had the idea I contacted my friend Nic, who became my business partner in the venture. Nic is a graphic designer and all-round tech nerd, so together we built this app with our developer Ben. Nic created designs that are so slick and cool, and Ben pulled it all together with his seamless coding. As this app is very much suited to my generation and demographic, the interface and features Instasnoop offers came to us like a snowball effect once I had the initial idea of not being able to like an image. There were bugs we had to iron out—Apple is very specific about what they require apps in the app store to do—but all in all it wasn’t too tedious.A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Sep 21, 2015 at 8:49pm PDT
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How much time a day do you spend on Instagram?I spend an obscene amount of time online every day, not just on Instagram. I like being in the know about what’s going on in the world, whether that’s countries in the EU re-establishing borders in an attempt to deal with refugees or a new video of a dog doing something ridiculously cute, I like seeing it as soon as it hits the internet.How has Instasnoop been received so far?It’s been very positively received! People are excited that their blunders of the past, although unable to be undone, won’t be repeated.Do you think there’s any negative psychological effects of lurking—like comparing ourselves to other people—and how do we keep our lurking lighthearted? I think anything can get out of control. It becomes an issue when we’re unable to stop ourselves and have no support base to help us, like with any addiction. Social media is such a huge part of our lives, it’s difficult to limit our use of it or say what is an appropriate amount of time to spend on it. I think if you’re unable to go a day without having a bit of a snoop on Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat/Twitter, your thoughts are totally consumed with seeing what certain people are doing, or your friends and family begin to comment on the fact that you spend X-amount of time looking at certain profiles, then it becomes an issue. It’s definitely important to remember that people only show 10% of what they want social media to see, so always remember that no matter how much time you spend looking at someone’s social media accounts you’ll never have a full picture [of their real life].A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Sep 13, 2015 at 7:16pm PDT
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A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Jul 26, 2015 at 5:56pm PDT
A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Aug 3, 2015 at 6:33pm PDT
A photo posted by @oliviaorchowski on Aug 2, 2015 at 9:19pm PDT
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