Roman here has stumbled upon a very powerful force in products. Emotions are the reason why we get up in the morning. It's what gives life color and variety an

Roman here has stumbled upon a very powerful force in products. Emotions are the reason why we get up in the morning. It's what gives life color and variety and meaning. It's the reason why we have friends, why some of us might enjoy work, why we prefer to live "life" instead of lying in bed, waiting to die. What Roman refers to in his photos is the fact that they are an incredibly efficient vehicle of emotions. In a small 480x320px package, you can reminisce about your unrequited crush, your first child just hours old, or your passed-away parents showing you how to use a computer. In that sudden surge, you take a sharp breath, close your eyes as your head begins to spin. You have just experienced a more-significant-than-average moment in life. I would go as far as to say emotions is the primary metric of life. The "best" times of your life are when you are feeling a surge of emotions, indelibly marking it on your brain as a memorable time. The other times when you don't feel anything tend to fade away until its nothing but a bland grayness when you try to recall that period in time. To maximize life is to maximize the memories you can remember. You maximize the memories you can remember by experiencing more emotions. Everyone wants to live meaningful, memorable lives. This is a primal need. . If emotions give life value, what if we can inject more into ourselves? Somehow we "cheat" the system and get more emotions than what is naturally due to us. This exists. We know this technique as "going to the movies." The reason why people pay $12 to watch a 2-hour long movie is because of the emotion stimulation that we yearn and crave for. It represents a very dense serving of love, humor, coolness, loneliness, accomplishment, disappointment, schadenfreude that leaves reality that much more bland and gray. But wait, you might argue. I'm a diciplined software engineer. I'm objective, diligent, and focused. I don't have any time to waste with sissy emotions. I'd argue that if anything, as engineers, we're even more addicted to emotions than anyone else. We chase after the pure bliss that comes from building something ourselves with our own hands. That emotion is so powerful that it overtakes what normal people regard as "fun" -- movies, fiction books, computer games. . So, what does this mean for our startups? It means that for people who get it, it offers a powerful design mechanism that makes products that give primal value. If you have an effective mechanism to trigger emotions, you have built something of value that people desperately desire. This applies to any sort of startup -- not just social network / photo apps. Add a narrative to the workflow; make your user feel things. Let them feel a heightened sense of accomplishment. Let them laugh because of an industry inside joke you included. Letting your users feel more things while they use your product is the surest way to beat your competition. More emotions mean more perceived value. More perceived value means more profit.