Nikon’s new “My Nikon World” app creates photo sharing network inside Facebook
posted Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 1:36 PM EDT
Nikon has announced "My Nikon World," a Facebook app that allows photographers to upload, view, and share images — and receive badges for doing so. My Nikon World is almost a social network inside of a social network, letting photographers connect, share, and participate as a microcosm inside of Facebook.
Once users give My Nikon World access to their Facebook accounts, they're awarded points and badges for interacting with the community. That means uploading images, liking or commenting on other's images, completing "challenges," and more.
My Nikon World's gallery also offers the ability to filter images by the gear they were shot with, what category they fall into, as well as how popular they are.
Unfortunately, it's not a process without flaws, as I learned while trying out the app today.
Since it runs as a Facebook app, My Nikon World takes place as a small window inside of Facebook proper, significantly limiting its real estate. At their biggest size, images are only displayed some 730 pixels wide, which is hardly big enough to really enjoy the details of a photograph.
In my experience, the process of uploading and tagging images using the Nikon app was cumbersome. Even though the app claims it detects EXIF data, you still have to manually enter what camera you shot it on, and with what lens, which is information that's in the metadata to begin with. It also tends to run quite slow, especially when you attempt to filter or sort images in the gallery.
With so many photographers on Facebook, Nikon can easily tap into those crowds without requiring them to sign up on a separate, independent site. But even so, you have to wonder if the promises of gamification, badges, and points are enough to draw people in. It worked with Fitocracy for exercise, so maybe it'll work for Nikon for photography.
