BW Communities

Billion Dollar Monday

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[There I was, almost settling in for night's sleep, when I happened to see a snip of news that nearly made me fall out of bed. Facebook is buying Instagram. For $1 billion. That's apparently more than the valuation of the New York Times. But that's not the reason I was jolted. Speaking purely as a user, I wasn't thinking of Instagram being bought by anyone, and least of all Facebook. Instagram is the seemingly minor photo-sharing app that was so far limited to the iPhone (and iPad, if you push it) but recently opened up to Android with a much anticipated long-awaited version. In a matter of hours, the app was downloaded a million times, adding that many users to Instagram's 32 million. iPhone users were none too pleased about Instagram becoming part of the Android world, because they felt Instagram was exclusive to them. Many nasty comments popped up about how this move now meant bad photos would pollute photo streams because all Android cameras were inferior to the iPhone's. In general, it was a case of Apple snobbery and even when the Instagram-Facebook news came out, iPhone users were saying well, now maybe Android users know exactly how we, felt when Instagram went Android. All that aside, why a little app should matter so much in the larger scheme of things is probably not easy for a non-user to understand. For in less than two years, Instagram shot from out of nowhere to 33 million users – with no signs of slowing – because users love it so much. Instagram may be a good case for bad photography, but it also is a social network on its own, where there's a special warmth and charm about sharing images from one's life, making new connections with people because of these images, and feeling truly good about it. Photos on Instagram can go up with the addition of various filters that give the photos a nostalgic, vintage or low-fi look that users have grown to love. Instagram was, until now, a happy little world of its own where sharing a picture really is insta and the give and take of appreciating each others' photos left you with a feel-good like no other social network. Actually, Instagram isn't where the most photos are shared, it's Facebook where 200 million are shared each day. So why does Facebook even need Instagram? Well, Instagram's method of sharing is far easier and smoother than Facebook's, even though Facebook has been working on improvements to the process all the time. So, when they think of just how to integrate Instagram with Facebook, a new capability could be added to the giant network and its 847 million users. And now many Instagram users are upset. While some are congratulating Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook page, there's also a significant number, me among them, who are doing nothing of the sort. For many of us, Instagram will never feel the same again. Once it's Facebook property, the atmosphere changes from implicit trust to distinct discomfort. I've put up black blank pictures up in protest – or rather, in sadness, for all they're worth. Mark Zuckerberg makes all the right noises about how they're only evolving things to make for a better photo-sharing experience, users wonder what happens to their data. Location, interests, friends and the images themselves are all now going to be at Facebook's disposal, where it will be free to do as it pleases, probably targeting users with ads all the more finely. It's no more than it does already, of course, but let's see the innovative ways that will come up in the future. Instagram, satisfying as it was to users, had no business model in place. It's possible that someone would have bought it even if Facebook hadn't. The honeymoon would not have carried on forever and this brings to the forefront that users have to pay a price for services, if not with money, then with the wealth of data they bring about themselves. Kevin Systrom, CEO, founder and designer of Instagram (who has a 40 per cent stake in Instagram) reassures users that the photo app will not go away but evolve and build on its strengths. What is also difficult to predict is what will happen to the many third party apps and services that tap into Instagram photos. See Flipboard, for example. Instagram photos actually look more beautiful there than they do on the app. InstaFlow is another app that gives you a beautiful fluid way of browsing and responding to Instagram photos. Another billion dollar deal took place on the same day as the Facebook-Instagram one. Microsoft is buying a billion dollars worth of internet-related patents from AOL. What it will do with them, we don't know, but acquiring patents has become a recent way of strengthening a company, giving it assets that mean it has an edge over the competition.