https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...hoto-sharing-app-booming-20190629-p522gp.html
'Walled garden of secrecy': private Aussie photo-sharing app booming
New York: Politicians, tech leaders and increasingly self-aware parents are turning to an Australian-born app to privately share their most treasured moments with loved ones.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the family of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Yahoo! executive Marissa Mayer are among the three million global users of Tinybeans, one of the world's most popular family photo sharing platforms.
Earlier this month, Apple named Tinybeans its App of the Day, giving it huge global exposure, sending the now New York-based company’s share price soaring.
With its strict privacy settings and focus on intimacy rather than building the profile of influencers, the app is also riding a wave of Facebook scandals and security fears over who can access and use our data.
Tinybeans came about when Stephen O’Young created a website to track key milestones in the development of his eldest son, who experienced speech delays. When his son’s speech improved, he let the website go idle. When his third son was born in 2011, he faced a fresh challenge.
Tinybeans founders Sarah-Jane Kurtini, Eddie Geller and Stephen O'Young (L-R) at their New York headquarters.
"My friends were blogging about their kids and organising their photos really nicely," he says. "I was guilty because I had never done that for my children. I felt like a bad parent. But I’m not a writer and thought I was too busy to blog."
Smartphones were starting to take off so O’Young, who was working as a software designer for big insurance firms like Allianz and IAG, tried designing a mobile app – a digital calendar where he could post photos of his boy. He soon shared the app with his parents, who live on the other side of Sydney. “I realised this was not just a keepsake for myself but a way to keep my family involved with my kids’ lives," he says. "I thought other parents could use this as well."
Through word-of-mouth and the help of a start-up incubator program in Sydney, Tinybeans was born.
The company's head of marketing, Sarah-Jane Kurtini, attended a lunch in Manhattan earlier this month and was surprised to hear guest speaker Frydenberg declare himself an avid user. "We have been using it since 2015 when my first child was born – we love it," Frydenberg says. "My wife updates it every day. I had no idea that it was Australian..."
Malcolm Turnbull's daughter, Daisy Turnbull-Brown, also uses the app to share photos and track milestones of her two young children."It protects teenagers – when they get Instagram or Facebook there won’t already be thousands of photos of them on there," she says.
Kurtini says the app is especially popular with parents who travel regularly for work or have parents living overseas. "People tell us they use our app as a happy place to go. If you think about where you want your kids’ photos to be it probably isn’t sandwiched between someone’s angry political posts and a bunch of silly memes."
If you think about where you want your kids’ photos to be it isn’t sandwiched between angry political posts and a bunch of silly memes.
Sarah-Jane Kurtini
She says the company has benefited from recent scandals at Facebook, including the revelation it may have improperly shared the data of up to 87 million users with an analytics firm tied to US President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.
One of Tinybeans' big selling points is privacy – no-one can see a user's photos, or even that they have an account, unless they are invited to do so. Users retain ownership over everything they post on the platform. "Our app is like a walled garden of secrecy," chief executive Eddie Geller says. "People really appreciate that they can’t be found."
Most users limit their network to grandparents, aunts and uncles and close friends. Kurtini says this allows people to post as many photos as they want without having to worry about "spamming" acquaintances and colleagues with 20 baby pictures a day.
Tinybeans now has advertising partnerships with major brands like Lego, Pottery Barn and Macmillan Publishers. But the transition from Sydney start-up to global player wasn't easy.
"People love the privacy we offer but as a marketer it is one of your worst nightmares," Kurtini says.
In its early expansion phase, the company failed to win the backing of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.
"We're not using drones or autonomous vehicles, we're not flashy," Geller says. "We are going against the grain with social media, which has all been about maximising reach. Our growth has been slow and steady."
Monopolies – Google for search, Amazon for online shopping – dominate the digital era, but the family and parenting space remains fragmented and competitive. Tinybeans is competing with similar family photo sharing apps such as 23 Snaps and Lifecake for market share.
O’Young says the sector is flourishing because parents are increasingly reluctant to engage in the "glamorisation of parenting".
"Social media has added so much pressure on parents to show this sanitised version of their life, to make out that you’ve got everything together. Mums and dads have come to appreciate that sharing too much of their lives on social media is not such a great thing."
'Walled garden of secrecy': private Aussie photo-sharing app booming
New York: Politicians, tech leaders and increasingly self-aware parents are turning to an Australian-born app to privately share their most treasured moments with loved ones.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the family of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Yahoo! executive Marissa Mayer are among the three million global users of Tinybeans, one of the world's most popular family photo sharing platforms.
Earlier this month, Apple named Tinybeans its App of the Day, giving it huge global exposure, sending the now New York-based company’s share price soaring.
With its strict privacy settings and focus on intimacy rather than building the profile of influencers, the app is also riding a wave of Facebook scandals and security fears over who can access and use our data.
Tinybeans came about when Stephen O’Young created a website to track key milestones in the development of his eldest son, who experienced speech delays. When his son’s speech improved, he let the website go idle. When his third son was born in 2011, he faced a fresh challenge.
Tinybeans founders Sarah-Jane Kurtini, Eddie Geller and Stephen O'Young (L-R) at their New York headquarters.
"My friends were blogging about their kids and organising their photos really nicely," he says. "I was guilty because I had never done that for my children. I felt like a bad parent. But I’m not a writer and thought I was too busy to blog."
Smartphones were starting to take off so O’Young, who was working as a software designer for big insurance firms like Allianz and IAG, tried designing a mobile app – a digital calendar where he could post photos of his boy. He soon shared the app with his parents, who live on the other side of Sydney. “I realised this was not just a keepsake for myself but a way to keep my family involved with my kids’ lives," he says. "I thought other parents could use this as well."
Through word-of-mouth and the help of a start-up incubator program in Sydney, Tinybeans was born.
The company's head of marketing, Sarah-Jane Kurtini, attended a lunch in Manhattan earlier this month and was surprised to hear guest speaker Frydenberg declare himself an avid user. "We have been using it since 2015 when my first child was born – we love it," Frydenberg says. "My wife updates it every day. I had no idea that it was Australian..."
Malcolm Turnbull's daughter, Daisy Turnbull-Brown, also uses the app to share photos and track milestones of her two young children."It protects teenagers – when they get Instagram or Facebook there won’t already be thousands of photos of them on there," she says.
Kurtini says the app is especially popular with parents who travel regularly for work or have parents living overseas. "People tell us they use our app as a happy place to go. If you think about where you want your kids’ photos to be it probably isn’t sandwiched between someone’s angry political posts and a bunch of silly memes."
If you think about where you want your kids’ photos to be it isn’t sandwiched between angry political posts and a bunch of silly memes.
Sarah-Jane Kurtini
She says the company has benefited from recent scandals at Facebook, including the revelation it may have improperly shared the data of up to 87 million users with an analytics firm tied to US President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.
One of Tinybeans' big selling points is privacy – no-one can see a user's photos, or even that they have an account, unless they are invited to do so. Users retain ownership over everything they post on the platform. "Our app is like a walled garden of secrecy," chief executive Eddie Geller says. "People really appreciate that they can’t be found."
Most users limit their network to grandparents, aunts and uncles and close friends. Kurtini says this allows people to post as many photos as they want without having to worry about "spamming" acquaintances and colleagues with 20 baby pictures a day.
Tinybeans now has advertising partnerships with major brands like Lego, Pottery Barn and Macmillan Publishers. But the transition from Sydney start-up to global player wasn't easy.
"People love the privacy we offer but as a marketer it is one of your worst nightmares," Kurtini says.
In its early expansion phase, the company failed to win the backing of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.
"We're not using drones or autonomous vehicles, we're not flashy," Geller says. "We are going against the grain with social media, which has all been about maximising reach. Our growth has been slow and steady."
Monopolies – Google for search, Amazon for online shopping – dominate the digital era, but the family and parenting space remains fragmented and competitive. Tinybeans is competing with similar family photo sharing apps such as 23 Snaps and Lifecake for market share.
O’Young says the sector is flourishing because parents are increasingly reluctant to engage in the "glamorisation of parenting".
"Social media has added so much pressure on parents to show this sanitised version of their life, to make out that you’ve got everything together. Mums and dads have come to appreciate that sharing too much of their lives on social media is not such a great thing."
