WaPo on Instagram/Facebook Lovely Snark

[ennuipoet]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/facebook-and-instagram-made-for-each-other/2012/04/10/gIQArTxl8S_story.html

The Instagram: the visual equivalent of minute rice.

Instagram is the nexus of kitsch and irony, and its filters might have belonged in the toolbox of recently deceased artist Thomas Kinkade,

Just as Instagram makes bad photos look good and good photos look great, Facebook makes you look happy and loved if you?re not, and joyous and adored if you are. Self-brand and share. Filter and share. Share the edited stuff, the varnished stuff, the stuff with the halo around it. Take a step away from truth for the sake of beauty.

Just beautiful!

[Yugoboy]

Because I don’t use either, am I a douchebag, a cyber-luddite, or too cool for the room?

[Farktographer]

I don’t understand how you can put the value of $1 billion on something like that. Seeing as it’s not a patented idea to have digitized filters, couldn’t a second company do *exactly* the same thing and completely sink instagram by next month?

The tide rises and falls quickly on all these apps and sharing services. I wouldn’t bother investing in one or the other because some will stick around for good, but just as frequently (or even moreso) you see something rise to get bought out for a cool half-million, only to disappear under the surface after the novelty has worn off.

[ennuipoet]

I don’t understand how you can put the value of $1 billion on something like that. Seeing as it’s not a patented idea to have digitized filters, couldn’t a second company do *exactly* the same thing and completely sink instagram by next month?

The tide rises and falls quickly on all these apps and sharing services. I wouldn’t bother investing in one or the other because some will stick around for good, but just as frequently (or even moreso) you see something rise to get bought out for a cool half-million, only to disappear under the surface after the novelty has worn off.

The money isn’t so much in the filters but in the mechanism for sharing the photos on a single click and the intergration with the smart phones. Much as I hate on the HisptaInsta the simplicity for sharing the poorly composed, badly lit photos of people’s breakfast is moderatley brilliant.

It takes three to five steps for me to post something on Flickr or Facebook, on Instagram it takes one, two if you caption. So, that is why Facebook wanted it. Is it a game changer…no, someone else could come along and do it and do it better, but I guess Zuck has money to burn.

[Kestrana]

The acquisition isn’t merely about instagram. Its about now having their software engineers and knocking outs minor social networking rival in the face of their IPO. Also, perhaps trying to lure the vibrant photo community from G+ since FB changed their photo viewer and photo sharing to be exactly like G+’s (ironic since the photo community hated the G+ viewer when it was new).

[Yugoboy]

When it becomes available, check out tonight’s Daily Show (April 10). Stewart did a whole segment on the acquisition and “WTF is Instagram?”

[Farktographer]

^one thing i loathe about being in the UK – the inability to watch the Daily Show. They block it out here…it sucks.

[ennuipoet]

When it becomes available, check out tonight’s Daily Show (April 10). Stewart did a whole segment on the acquisition and “WTF is Instagram?”

Snerk! “A Billion dollars for something to make your photos worse?” Well played Daily Show writers!

[Yugoboy]

^one thing i loathe about being in the UK – the inability to watch the Daily Show. They block it out here…it sucks.

http://www.comedycentral.com/

http://www.thedailyshow.com/ Full episodes available, including April 10’s

[chupathingie]

The acquisition isn’t merely about instagram. Its about now having their software engineers and knocking outs minor social networking rival in the face of their IPO. Also, perhaps trying to lure the vibrant photo community from G+ since FB changed their photo viewer and photo sharing to be exactly like G+’s (ironic since the photo community hated the G+ viewer when it was new).

That’s the meat of it. Not only does FB not have to worry about licensing the IP (and I can certainly drone on about the evils of software patents), but now they have a club to extract payments from others who have the gall to do the sensible, obvious thing by having their users execute the fewest possible clicks to do something.

Did I mention that software patents are evil?

[caradoc]

The acquisition isn’t merely about instagram. Its about now having their software engineers and knocking outs minor social networking rival in the face of their IPO. Also, perhaps trying to lure the vibrant photo community from G+ since FB changed their photo viewer and photo sharing to be exactly like G+’s (ironic since the photo community hated the G+ viewer when it was new).

Not to mention acquiring the Instagram user base. That’s probably the most valuable asset in the transaction.

[ennuipoet]

The acquisition isn’t merely about instagram. Its about now having their software engineers and knocking outs minor social networking rival in the face of their IPO. Also, perhaps trying to lure the vibrant photo community from G+ since FB changed their photo viewer and photo sharing to be exactly like G+’s (ironic since the photo community hated the G+ viewer when it was new).

Not to mention acquiring the Instagram user base. That’s probably the most valuable asset in the transaction.

I can’t believe for a moment that well over 90% of the Instagram user base are not mutually on Facebook. Sure, you will have a few die hards that grumble and perhaps drop off the service, but most are already vigorously…god, how vigorously…sharing their Instagram “photos” via Facebook.

[Kestrana]

Yeah most of the Instagrammers were already on FB – but I thought of something else today too. It’s not just the acquisition that”s surprising but the $1B price tag attached to it. Why would they be willing to pay so much for an app that’s probably just a fad? Well, instagram *just* released to Android last week. It was only on iPhones previously. So, perhaps they had to outbid Apple to acquire Instagram since Apple is a fan of acquiring things like that. Say what you will about the “quality” of photos put out by Instagram, it’s a powerful photo editor that is probably better than Picknik (now a Google product) or Aviary (the yahoo replacement for Picknik on Flickr). FB didn’t have much of a photo editor before, now they have access to one of the most sophisticated entry level user ones available.

[ennuipoet]

Yeah most of the Instagrammers were already on FB – but I thought of something else today too. It’s not just the acquisition that”s surprising but the $1B price tag attached to it. Why would they be willing to pay so much for an app that’s probably just a fad? Well, instagram *just* released to Android last week. It was only on iPhones previously. So, perhaps they had to outbid Apple to acquire Instagram since Apple is a fan of acquiring things like that. Say what you will about the “quality” of photos put out by Instagram, it’s a powerful photo editor that is probably better than Picknik (now a Google product) or Aviary (the yahoo replacement for Picknik on Flickr). FB didn’t have much of a photo editor before, now they have access to one of the most sophisticated entry level user ones available.

Several pundits have said FB moved to pick up to head off Google or Microsoft from snatching Instagram. I hadn’t thought about the editor portion of the app, which has to have some real bones to do some of the filters. (Yeah, I kinda gave IG a compliment there, I could replicate all the filters in Photoshop, but it would take real work.)

[Kestrana]

Saw this on TF under the headline “Facebook plans for Instagram secretly released”: http://whiteoutnews.tumblr.com/

[Author]

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