Retro is a super cool social networking app that helps you share photos and communicate with far-flung friends, family members, and everyone who matters in your life. And today, the company is sending out a major update with a handful of new features. Retro is also available on Android and in more places after global availability.
In case you missed the first episode, Retro is a deeply personal social sharing app founded by two former Instagram team members. During their time at Meta, along with other members of the Instagram team, they took Meta’s social media app to the next level with stories and other feature demos.
But retro isn’t like Instagram. What makes Retro special is that it’s all about sharing memories with your loved ones. You can’t follow influencers, there’s no algorithmic feed, and you can’t even take photos with the app. There is also no hiding as everyone is encouraged to participate.
Instead, Retro lets you add your most important photos and videos from your camera roll. Tap, tap, tap, hit send and you’re good to go. Your small group of friends will receive a notification so they can check your latest updates.
Each friend’s post appears as a card. When you open it, you can see all of this week’s content from that particular friend — it’s sort of a weekly story, a curated photo calendar from your friends. By default, you can see your friends’ photos from the last four weeks, if you’ve shared some photos yourself.
“Our daily engagement rate is 50%, meaning that every day, over half of the people who visit Retro also post a photo or video to Retro. Engagement rate is so important to us because most platforms, even in their early stages, tend toward power laws where a small percentage of users post for the majority of users to consume,” Retro co-founder and CEO told me , Nathan Sharp. E-MAIL.
After a few weeks of use, when you open your own Retro profile, it becomes a highly curated photo diary of your life’s most memorable moments — big and small. And that brings me to today’s updates.
Image Credits: Retro
From retro to recaps
Let’s be honest, we take way too many pictures with our phones. Chances are your camera roll is filled with restaurant menus you sent to your friend who’s always late, screenshots of concert tickets, and clothes you’re trying to sell at a thrift store.
That’s why Retro has become such a serene place for the important things. And the company is taking advantage of this by adding recaps.
As the year draws to a close, Retro users can now find a new ‘Recaps’ button on their profile. From there, users can choose a duration — the past year, a specific month, a recent week, or all of their photos.
After that, Retro gives you a handful of formats for your recap. It can be a collage or a video showing your posts one by one. You can choose to keep a Polaroid-style border or make it full screen.
So what are you supposed to do with these recaps? You can send them to your loved ones, of course! These recaps are meant to be shared on your favorite group messaging app. You can also use them as an Instagram or Snapchat story.
Retro also added a new app-wide button to recaps or individual photo posts. Now you can send photos as good old-fashioned postcards — yes, printed postcards with a few words on the back.
This feature will be perfect for parents who are always getting requests to send photos of their kids. Printed by a partner in the U.S. Right now, you can send postcards for free and the feature is available worldwide. So it will be interesting to see if people start talking about Retro during the holidays because of these postcards.
Image Credits: Retro
