Frontback Is Making the Jump From Simple Photo Sharing to Social Networking

Frontback, a photo-sharing app akin to Instagram (albeit with a much smaller user base), is expanding into the social media realm.

The app allows users to share two photos stitched together as one — one photo taken with the front-facing camera and the other with the rear-facing camera, hence the name — and added both public and private comments on Thursday. Now users can respond to images they see in their stream, sending back their own image or video complete with text if they want.

It’s one of the first major product changes for Frontback, which launched just over a year ago and gained early attention thanks to celebrity users like Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and actor Ashton Kutcher (an investor). The San Francisco-based startup, which took a $3 million seed round shortly after launch, has been relatively quiet since.

The comments, which Frontback calls “reactions,” mean the company is moving more toward social networking, says CEO Frédéric della Faille. Dedicated users were already finding ways to respond to one another within the app, but the majority were using a product that didn’t lend itself to much interaction. “For the most engaged users it was, from day one, a social network,” said della Faille, 39. “But not for most people who tried the app. They saw it as a camera.”

With the update, della Faille hopes the ability to respond — especially in private — will change that.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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