What happens when you combine two of the fastest growing social media products on the planet?
We may soon find out with the launch of Pinstagram, a new site born this past weekend out of a "self-imposed hackathon" by Pek Pongpaet and Brandon Leonardo, a design and development team in the San Francisco Bay area.
Pongpaet and Leonardo told TechCocktail the idea for the site started with a joke -- that if Pinterest and Instagram are two of the hottest companies around right now, what if you put the two together?
By simply signing into Instagram, the mashup allows users to view their default feed (friends' photos), popular pictures, their own photos and favorites, all within a sleek Pinterest-like design. Users can also interact with any of the photos by liking, commenting or pinning them to Pinterest.
Pongpaet elaborated on the thinking behind the new site, Pinstagram.co, in a blog post:
I love using Instagram. The problem with Instagram however is their web experience is non-existent. I’ve been frustrated that the only way to consume Instagram is through my iPhone. Lately, Pinterest and Instagram have been getting a lot of press because of Instagram’s 1 billion dollar purchase by Facebook and Pinterest’s hypergrowth.
My cofounder Brandon and I were having a discussion on startup pitches, especially the ones that go “we’re an X for Y” and thought a hilarious VC pitch would be “we’re a Pinterest for Instagram”. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I liked Instagram, and this was a real need for me. There was nothing like it out there that I would use. So last weekend I decided I would make it a weekend project.
Pongpaet says the site is "a very simple Ruby and Sinatra app" and it doesn't even have a database. The front end was built on Twitter Bootstrap.
Related on HuffPost:
The Secret To Pinterest's Success
Pinterest Traffic Growth Soars To New Heights
Facebook App Turns Profile, Timeline Into Pinterest Board
Instagram Acquired By Facebook For $1 Billion
Facebook: Why We Bought Instagram