You have decided to go more towards the organisation of photos rather than just facilitating sharing. How did you come to this conclusion?

We wanted to know exactly what kinds of features our users were using on the website, what they expected of our product. So we sent them a questionnaire and we got over 500 responses… we couldn’t have asked for more, it was really tremendous!

We then spoke in more detail with some of them. It was a very enriching experience and one that led us to figure out that sharing was not the main sticking point our users encountered in their everyday lives.

Their issue was simple, too many photos from too many different photo services! So we decided to focus on the organisation of said photos as well as the ability to search quickly using specific themes: a wedding, overseas trip, close friends etc…

This enabled us to completely rethink the concept of sharing photos. What we are going to do in the near future is launch a second part of Kumquat which amounts to our vision of easy photo-sharing for all…

“Kumquat”? We have decided to name each of our major versions of Pictarine, and Kumquat is what we have called the first. In Cantonese it means golden Pictarine, which means that Kumquat is that oh-so-precious concentrate distilled from the responses of our users!

Your timeline idea, was it before or after Facebook’s?

Of course we were there first! Timeline is the most natural way to organise your personal photos. To be able to go back in time in a second and relive those very special moments in your life from 2008, it’s just incredible. We actually went even further with Kumquat, not only will it be your own photos that you’re rediscovering but those of your close friends as well! And when it comes to photos, we are the only ones offering such an advanced social experience.