The Other Hyperlapse Rides Instagram’s Coattails to the Top

This past Tuesday, Instagram released Hyperlapse, an app that speeds up and converts videos you take on your smartphone using time-lapse technology. With reports of a similar software, being developed by Microsoft for its GoPro camera and using the same name, we wanted to take a closer look. It turns out that Microsoft and Instagram are not the only two companies to use the name “Hyperlapse”.

An app released by Hieronymus Belt a year prior with the same name came up in the coveted first search result position for the first few days, while “Hyperlapse from Instagram”, billed as such, was #2. We wondered how many people, eager to take Instagram’s new product for a spin, may have accidentally downloaded the wrong app in their haste. We took a look at the charts for this app, which does not convert your own videos, but rather utilizes time-lapse to take you on a virtual tour of streets around the world. Here’s what we found:

After the original app skyrocketed up the ranks, it was quickly changed from a free app, to paid (at $.99) in an attempt to capitalize on the free traffic. The following caveat has also been added to it’s description: “Hyperlapse by Instagram is another app which work differently”.

In the past, we’ve seen apps being named after already-popular and successful predecessors (for example, the inundation of apps with “flappy” in their name), in an attempt to ride their coattails to the top of the ranks. However, with this happening in a reverse order, we see that a case can be made for the power of mistaken identity.