But if Twitter can morph into a mainstream photo-sharing/messaging juggernaut then perhaps yes.
VSCO's mobile app includes filters for post processing images shot within the app, but also offers greater precision for editing the images than mainstream photo-sharing and social networking apps.
Safe to say, the network effects of mainstream photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram, where both Prisma pics and FaceApp selfies have gained eyeballs, are able to lift newcomers into the limelight relatively quickly — at least if they have something people find novel enough to share.
Copies of favorable press articles are framed on VandeHei's office wall, along with keepsakes from Politico's mainstream incursion (a photo of himself moderating a presidential debate on CNN).
It is much less mainstream than making photos of birds.
The site has run stories on food prices in the Philippines, Taleban activity in Pakistan not reported in the mainstream press and photos after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar.
The green canals and famous bridges; the warmly coloured palazzo (grand residences) and narrow alleyways; the breathtaking openness of Piazza San Marco, the arched prow of a gondola and the gentle wake behind a vaporetto (waterbus) – all have been immortalised in mediums as classic as Canaletto's paintings and as mainstream as Facebook photos.
But while startups like Whisper and Secret are generating buzz off of offering anonymous — or 'anonymish' — communications, Twitter is busy focusing on the more mainstream habit of photo-sharing as the engine that (it hopes) will drive its business.
While currently, the majority of Snapchat users are aged 13 to 34, its reach is starting to skew older as the social media app gains popularity and hits the mainstream as video and photo sharing service.
The earlier timebombing iOS app — called Secret.li — also let users share visually encrypted photos on mainstream social networks in an ephemeral way, choosing to have the photos disappear after a pre-set interval.
Now that the project has lost its leader, though, there is a definite chance that Google will start deemphasizing Google+ or focus on the Google+ features that do have a strong mainstream appeal: Hangouts and photos.
