Startup

InstaGP Time to Pivot

InstaGP Time to Pivot

After my initial post of 3 Startups before the end of the year I already have an update. Like lots of tech companies a pivot was definitely going to occur. Well I certainly didn’t expect a pivot so early on.

I started working on InstaGP the Instagram + MotoGP (Motorcycle Racing) mashup. Initially I was going to pull pictures from Instagram based on time and location. Based on this information it was planned to take these pictures + locations and overlay them on top of the particular race track. Well that was the plan...

So what happened? I created a wireframe of what I wanted to build for InstaGP and the integration between InstaGP and the Instagram API. Before I wrote the first line of code, I decided to test the API to find out exactly what I could retrieve from the API. The results blew my plan for InstaGP right out of the water. When I queried the Instagram API for a particular race track location just for MotoGP related pictures the amount of pictures returned were almost nothing. After doing a few more queries I quickly realized most MotoGP related pictures have no location assigned at all. Searching by the Tag name “MotoGP” or riders names like "Valentino Rossi" or "Nicky Hayden" returned all sorts of crazy results with some pictures not even MotoGP or motorcycle racing related.

The common term used in the startup world for such occasions is a pivot or change of direction which is exactly what was needed. I’ve pivoted my initial plan to the next phase. I’ve decided to build InstaGP pivot as follows:

  • Create a website which acts as a portal for gathering all the social media for all MotoGP riders, teams, and tracks. The initial release will contain just Instagram feeds per rider, team, or track.

  • Release 2 (January 2015) will integrate Twitter and Facebook feeds although I’m not convinced about Facebook.

  • Release 3 (February 2015) will provided a Most Popular Tweets or Instagram Images category from all rider feeds. Basically displaying the most popular picture or tweets from all the pictures or Tweets.

Still lots of work to do but so far I’m very happy with the progress. But the end of the year is quickly approaching. Yikes!

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