Unhip Hipstamatic? Or Fauxtography Fail?

News just to hand...Hipstamatic that coolest of cool iPhone applications has had to lay off five of its eleven employees according to the British Journal Of Photography. The BJP reports that Hipstamatic"is facing financial hardship, as the app has disappeared from the top charts on Apple's App Store especially since Instagram's rise in popularity. Hipstamatic is said to have four million users, when Instagram has reached 80 million users in less than two years. Recently, Facebook acquired Instagram for close to $1bn."Now there is a little bit of debate over on my Facebook page about this, with a few respected photographers weighing in on the fact that in keeping with the uncertain future of Hipstamatic that the future of their proposed 'Foundation For Photojournalism" which was to support "the next generation of photographic storytellers using smartphones with Hipstamatic to tell and broadcast their tales." may dissolve.I certainly found it quite ironic that Hipstamatic is no longer hip but one of my colleagues has pointed out that anything that has photojournalistic intentions and is failing can't be a good thing for the industry. On the other hand another of my colleagues has pointed out that Hipstamatic is merely a software company that developed an iPhone app which is pretty meaningless.Now of course I never like to stir things up...but I think there is a fundamental issue here that both of my esteemed colleagues might be missing... And that is that the longevity of  any of the so called 'new' innovations in photography seems to last about as long as hoola hoops and yo-yos have in the various decades that they have resurfaced.And in regards to the larger question of Fauxtography and using an app... well you can point a camera in any direction now days and you apply an app like Hipstamatic but if the content of the image is not predicated with some emotion, thought or concept then what you are getting is exactly the same snapshot that everyone else does and just making it look  better with an app...Photojournalism to me is the recording of events with an informed viewpoint and angle and I personally try and make my pictures and my words count for something....So if Hipstamatic were/are serious about setting up a Foundation for Photojournalism then I would say it would be a sad thing if they  were not able to proceed... and even though Hipstamatic is merely an app it really doesn't matter as long as the photos are strong enough to stand on their own minus the wizzbangery...The unfortunate truth is most people are just using Hipstamatic and Instagram to make snapshots...And thats valid as long as people don't confuse a snapshot with an important well thought out document...Whats interesting to me about both Hipstamatic and Instagram is that I have a book on Polaroid photography that was published in 2004. My flatmate Tommy Trinh who alas has never experienced the visceral pleasure of working with that magic medium immediately summarised the photographs in the  book as 'looking like Instagrams'. Obviously this is where the developers found their inspiration.Now as someone that doesn't even own an iPhone finding that I might already have missed the boat with Hipstamatic doesn't unduly concern me.... Of course it does make me a bit unhip I guess so just to prove I am not I did shoot todays portrait of Tommy Trinh on his phone using Hipstamatic...Somehow though I don't see what all the fuss is about...just another storm in the hip pocket I think...I guess I will just wait it out until someone develops something really new in the world of photography...