Hello 👋

Thanks for being a part of Glass

First off, thank you. Seriously. We were a bit blown away by the initial response around Glass, and we're so glad you're interested.

Who

There's three of us, myself (a product designer previously at Facebook, Pinterest, and Framer) and two engineers (one backend, one iOS). We're all working various levels of part time on the project, and have been for the past 5 months.

Why

When we talk with photographers there doesn't seem to be a go to place that supports this thriving and wonderful community. There have been moments online over the past 20 years, but in 2020, this feels like a community that needs a true home. Your response to our initial announcement gives us confidence that we were right.

Also, why announce now? Development has been going extremely well, and the product was getting to the point where we wanted to start talking to our initial community around the concept. The product is all about the photographers that make up this community, and we didn't want to be building in a vacuum. Hence, the email sign up.

What

Like we said, we're building a home for people who make photographs. Not selfies, stories, quick snaps, or influencers, but for people who are either professional photographers or enthusiasts and love to make pictures. People who desire to say something with their photos. People who obsess about lenses, gear, lighting, mood, location, and all that photography has to offer. Not a photo storage service or popularity contest amongst influencers. A private space where people can feel comfortable sharing and able to learn from other photographers.

It'll be a simple chronological feed of photographers you follow. The feed will be thoughtfully-posted photographs where you can comment and learn about the photos. EXIF data will be prominently displayed next to a high-quality image. We've built things in a way where we hope to strike the ideal balance between photo quality, viewport sizes, and bandwidth concerns.

It'll be a subscription product. This helps with keeping out people who may not really want to be part of the community. It lets us say with confidence there won't be data harvesting to target ads. We aren't taking on venture capital, so we can focus on this one specific community and avoid needing to broaden our appeal to scale exponentially. Right now we're entirely self funded, and we plan to remain that way until we can earn paying customers.

We're committed to building a long-term sustainable business.

We know reading about a product is nothing like playing with it, so...

When

Right now we're building the backend to support accounts, following, profiles, etc. along with an iOS app. We consider these the basics.

We're hoping to have a beta available soon, but we ask you to be patient with us. It's a non-trivial thing to build, and we're striving to do it well.

How

How can you help? For now, just spread the word and email (hi@glass.photo) us with any thoughts around what you hope this community might be. What you're looking for in a new online community as photographer. Feedback now will truly help shape what we build.

We'll have more soon, but thanks again for your enthusiasm and for taking the time to read this.