Insight

Social has a side effect – the things we share rarely receive more than a few seconds of appreciation and often end up lost in endless feeds. But what if we could share with more than just a few seconds in mind?

Idea

Inkable isn’t just an app; it’s a piece of technology that reintroduces printing to a new generation. A simple solution that takes an infrequently used printer and places it squarely in modern content delivery and sharing. It’s the first social printing network, a way for friends to share content with each other through printers, letting them express themselves in more personal and tactile ways. The idea didn’t start with a traditional brief, but with a broader ambition to reinvent printing for a new generation.

The first of its kind social printing network gives the 370 billion photos taken every year the ability to last longer than the social standard, a few seconds. And the only way to see shared content on Inkable? When ink has been put to paper.

To bring the idea of the first social printing network to life, we integrated HP’s printing and cloud technology with a seamless user experience. Our efforts established a network of socially connected printers around the world, allowing friends to take photos and Ink them automatically to their friends’ printers. HP’s cloud server controlled the Inkable network, uploading Inks, sending notifications to the iOS and Android devices of Inkable recipients, and connecting printers. The technology stack consists of Node.js and a combination of Reddis and mysql on Linux.

Inkable was created, prototyped and launched in just six months. The app just went live on the App Store in April. The next goal of the app is to scale to over a million wireless printers within the first year. Upcoming are features such as messaging and editing tools, launching Inkable was just the first step.