The horse has bolted: a review of Instagram's Bolt app

It looks nice and registration is very quick. Put in your phone number, sync your contacts, and populate a favourites list. In an almost identical way to Mirage, you can see your friends in circles at the bottom of your screen and in one click of a head, a photo is sent. You can hold down to send video and you can play with camera settings at the top. When receiving a “bolt”, a notification appears in the top of the app. View it and choose to reply via video or text in a similar way to Slingshot.

And that’s it.

So what makes it different? Nothing of any note in my opinion. Instagram have said that speed is the difference. Simple interface and one touch send. In fact, it has a lot of things that may hold it back from out-pacing competitors. With Bolt, you register with SMS and you connect with people based on your phone number. That is somewhat restrictive and seems like a strange tactic given the penetration of Instagram and Facebook connect options. The main concern thing to note is that successful sharing apps have a key point of difference that is easily understood by users and has word of mouth credentials.

Snapchat has the fun of moment-in-time messages.

Instagram makes shots look better.

Frontback adds context to the selfie.

So what are Instagram playing at? Why can’t they get creative and bring something new to the party? Let’s be honest, Snapchat is a bit clunky, but that is outweighed by the Bolt is just another chocolate bar on the shelf. It’s no Double Decker, that’s for certain. It will be picked up – with Instagram’s huge user base (and signs that they’ll be adding banners in here to drive take up of Bolt) people will no doubt use it. But, in the bigger scheme of things, they will have to do a lot more to capture the hearts of users who will always be reaching for the best chocolate bar on the shelf!

It’s a fun race to watch and the name-calling has already started (as it always does!). Whilst, Android calling app (also called Bolt) begged for them to change their name, Taptalk founder stuck two fingers up.

Ultimately, it’s us that decides who will have the most success. But this time it’s less likely to be a decision made on the product and more about the marketing. Sometimes, sadly, bigger trumps better. Whether that is the case here, we’re yet to see.

Whilst genius often steals, this time genius has let themselves down what. If Instagram need some ideas, our door is always open.

Steve Cater is also a judge at this year's Social Buzz Awards. Find out more and enter here.