5 ms·

The real genius is, he left it alone and gave it autonomy. That in contrast to Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo that can't seem to resist the allure of 'synergy'.

by pcurve 10y ago

The real genius is, he left it alone and gave it autonomy. That in contrast to Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo that can't seem to resist the allure of 'synergy'. I bet most people don't even know Instagram is owned by facebook.

tyingq 10y ago
I agree, but Google did well with YouTube, despite their meddling. I suppose the margins of advertising allow for a lot of mistakes.
MildlySerious 10y ago
That seems like the real takeaway here. This is in good contrast with WhatsApp, which was almost left alone, but not enough so, and got a couple of bad headlines related since the acquisition.
- tsycho 10y ago
  Umm, WhatsApp might not be popular in the US but it's massively popular in India, Brazil and many other countries. IIRC they crossed 1B users a few months ago, and continue to grow. At acquisition, they were at 400M. If you look at how messaging has become the primary monetization platform in China, I would argue that WhatsApp is much more critical to Facebook's long term success globally than Instagram. And the MO seems the same from my outsider perspective - they were mostly left alone till very recently.
  - MildlySerious 10y ago
    I'm not saying it wasn't a good call for FB to buy WhatsApp from a business perspective, but I am thinking that had they left it alone, as in, not screwed around with it, it would have kept growing just as well, maybe even more so than it now that a share of people stopped trusting it as much.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  I think it wasn't left alone at all. It was turned upside down. The old main feature: pay-a-reasonable-fee-to-chat-privately was taken behind the barn and shot dead. I and my friends have now moved almost every group I was a member of over to Telegram (there is one left). And yes I know Whatsapp might have stronger encryption but for us that doesn't matter.
  - MildlySerious 10y ago
    TG is my messenger of choice as well and I am really more happy with it in every aspect, sans the encryption. I sincerely wish they would do something to get that up to current standards. I'd pay to use that, too.
satysin 10y ago
Indeed. It is hard to tell Instagram is even part of Facebook unless you look for it. There is no Facebook branding, etc. They made login/signup easier but that isn't unique to Instagram. The adverts are also not awful. Discovery is also pretty good, better than Twitter IMHO. Overall I still quite like Instagram even though I only post to it once every couple of months.
- gkop 10y ago
  Instagram has become a lot less fun for me and my friends since the acquisition. Shortly after the acquisition, they removed custom places, and only allowed us to tag photos with Facebook places. And more recently they removed the photo map. I wish Facebook would kill Instagram quickly instead of slowly and painfully over time.
  - jonknee 10y ago
    > I wish Facebook would kill Instagram quickly instead of slowly and painfully over time. Instagram is not dying slowly, it's actually growing rapidly.
  - chipperyman573 10y ago
    Just because they removed two feature (that I personally didn't even know existed, having used it before the acquisition) doesn't mean they're killing it
Mister_Y 10y ago
I live in Spain and most people I talk to doesn't know about Instagram's acquisition by FB, but I also believe they're mistaken with what they're doing with WhatsApp, basically I got an ad about a Gin brand and I had never mention or looked for this online, I just talked to my friends about it... and boom!! hehe
- thesimpsons1022 10y ago
  yeah idk if it's just me but instagram ads seem so much more intrusive and personal than facebook ones. what creeps me out is that i hardly ever use the service yet they can target ads since i use facebook
rch 10y ago
Wasn't Tumblr mostly left alone? I've never used it, but looking now I don't notice any overt Yahoo influence.
- pcurve 10y ago
  I think there were problems behind-the-scene that made a lot of Tumblr people unhappy. http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-plan-to-combine-its-sales-team-with-tumblr-failed-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-plan-to-combine-its-sa...
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  It was. Differences: Instagram's user base was still growing, mobile-first. Tumblr has plateaued, and still feels more like a web thing in a mobile world. But anyway Yahoo didn't ruin Tumblr and that's a thing to be grateful for.
- evanelias 10y ago
  The impact isn't necessarily overt in this type of situation. Not just talking about Tumblr/Yahoo, but in general -- when evaluating an acquisition after-the-fact, there's more than just overt branding to consider. Think about amount of support from the parent company, rate of feature rollouts, ad quality, company culture, turnover / morale, hiring bar, internal transfers, etc. Despite being an M&A buzzword, synergy is really important and doesn't mean meddling or interference. With Instagram and Facebook, consider that FB already had massive expertise in growing a successful social network, and ditto regarding infrastructure, as well as monetization. FB also advertises Instagram in-app for free. And Instagram is "cool" so there's major motivation for talented people at FB to do an internal transfer to Instagram. Similar situation with YouTube and Google. e.g., Google was undoubtedly able to increase YouTube's growth rate by virtue of being the top search engine and tightly integrating all YouTube content into Google search. With Tumblr and Yahoo, it's just not the same situation. They aren't headquartered on the same coast; their audiences don't overlap, which is especially bad for monetization; their products don't naturally interact in any way; the parent company has no experience with running a user-generated content property of this size; and the parent company has been viewed as being in decline for many years.
AndyNemmity 10y ago
I don't know, a lot of acquisitions are left alone for 2-3 years. In my experience that doesn't work, and instead just delays the real integration for 2-3 years. Often times while having a less valuable property, 2-3 years later on. The real genius is, accurately evaluating if the teams are able to be left alone, with autonomy. And then moving on that accurate evaluation with quickness, and efficiency. If that's leave them alone, then integrate them with HR/etc, and let them be autonomous. If that's integrate fast, and heavy, then immediately start having regular working meetings with teams in other locations to limit the little brother syndrome of acquisitions. But getting the path right, is the genius in my view. It isn't as simple as always leaving the teams alone.
lechiffre10 10y ago
It wasn't left alone. Instagram's API became a lot more restrictive after Facebook's acquisition and they are implementing a lot of features from Facebook's obsession with competing with Snapchat ( Live, stories etc...) Not saying it's a bad thing.

by pcurve 10y ago

tyingq 10y ago

I agree, but Google did well with YouTube, despite their meddling. I suppose the margins of advertising allow for a lot of mistakes.

MildlySerious 10y ago

That seems like the real takeaway here. This is in good contrast with WhatsApp, which was almost left alone, but not enough so, and got a couple of bad headlines related since the acquisition.

tsycho 10y ago
Umm, WhatsApp might not be popular in the US but it's massively popular in India, Brazil and many other countries. IIRC they crossed 1B users a few months ago, and continue to grow. At acquisition, they were at 400M. If you look at how messaging has become the primary monetization platform in China, I would argue that WhatsApp is much more critical to Facebook's long term success globally than Instagram. And the MO seems the same from my outsider perspective - they were mostly left alone till very recently.
- MildlySerious 10y ago
  I'm not saying it wasn't a good call for FB to buy WhatsApp from a business perspective, but I am thinking that had they left it alone, as in, not screwed around with it, it would have kept growing just as well, maybe even more so than it now that a share of people stopped trusting it as much.
reitanqild 10y ago
I think it wasn't left alone at all. It was turned upside down. The old main feature: pay-a-reasonable-fee-to-chat-privately was taken behind the barn and shot dead. I and my friends have now moved almost every group I was a member of over to Telegram (there is one left). And yes I know Whatsapp might have stronger encryption but for us that doesn't matter.
- MildlySerious 10y ago
  TG is my messenger of choice as well and I am really more happy with it in every aspect, sans the encryption. I sincerely wish they would do something to get that up to current standards. I'd pay to use that, too.

satysin 10y ago

Indeed. It is hard to tell Instagram is even part of Facebook unless you look for it. There is no Facebook branding, etc. They made login/signup easier but that isn't unique to Instagram. The adverts are also not awful. Discovery is also pretty good, better than Twitter IMHO. Overall I still quite like Instagram even though I only post to it once every couple of months.

gkop 10y ago
Instagram has become a lot less fun for me and my friends since the acquisition. Shortly after the acquisition, they removed custom places, and only allowed us to tag photos with Facebook places. And more recently they removed the photo map. I wish Facebook would kill Instagram quickly instead of slowly and painfully over time.
- jonknee 10y ago
  > I wish Facebook would kill Instagram quickly instead of slowly and painfully over time. Instagram is not dying slowly, it's actually growing rapidly.
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  Just because they removed two feature (that I personally didn't even know existed, having used it before the acquisition) doesn't mean they're killing it

Mister_Y 10y ago

I live in Spain and most people I talk to doesn't know about Instagram's acquisition by FB, but I also believe they're mistaken with what they're doing with WhatsApp, basically I got an ad about a Gin brand and I had never mention or looked for this online, I just talked to my friends about it... and boom!! hehe

thesimpsons1022 10y ago
yeah idk if it's just me but instagram ads seem so much more intrusive and personal than facebook ones. what creeps me out is that i hardly ever use the service yet they can target ads since i use facebook

rch 10y ago

Wasn't Tumblr mostly left alone? I've never used it, but looking now I don't notice any overt Yahoo influence.

pcurve 10y ago
I think there were problems behind-the-scene that made a lot of Tumblr people unhappy. http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-plan-to-combine-its-sales-team-with-tumblr-failed-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-plan-to-combine-its-sa...
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
It was. Differences: Instagram's user base was still growing, mobile-first. Tumblr has plateaued, and still feels more like a web thing in a mobile world. But anyway Yahoo didn't ruin Tumblr and that's a thing to be grateful for.
evanelias 10y ago
The impact isn't necessarily overt in this type of situation. Not just talking about Tumblr/Yahoo, but in general -- when evaluating an acquisition after-the-fact, there's more than just overt branding to consider. Think about amount of support from the parent company, rate of feature rollouts, ad quality, company culture, turnover / morale, hiring bar, internal transfers, etc. Despite being an M&A buzzword, synergy is really important and doesn't mean meddling or interference. With Instagram and Facebook, consider that FB already had massive expertise in growing a successful social network, and ditto regarding infrastructure, as well as monetization. FB also advertises Instagram in-app for free. And Instagram is "cool" so there's major motivation for talented people at FB to do an internal transfer to Instagram. Similar situation with YouTube and Google. e.g., Google was undoubtedly able to increase YouTube's growth rate by virtue of being the top search engine and tightly integrating all YouTube content into Google search. With Tumblr and Yahoo, it's just not the same situation. They aren't headquartered on the same coast; their audiences don't overlap, which is especially bad for monetization; their products don't naturally interact in any way; the parent company has no experience with running a user-generated content property of this size; and the parent company has been viewed as being in decline for many years.

AndyNemmity 10y ago

I don't know, a lot of acquisitions are left alone for 2-3 years. In my experience that doesn't work, and instead just delays the real integration for 2-3 years. Often times while having a less valuable property, 2-3 years later on. The real genius is, accurately evaluating if the teams are able to be left alone, with autonomy. And then moving on that accurate evaluation with quickness, and efficiency. If that's leave them alone, then integrate them with HR/etc, and let them be autonomous. If that's integrate fast, and heavy, then immediately start having regular working meetings with teams in other locations to limit the little brother syndrome of acquisitions. But getting the path right, is the genius in my view. It isn't as simple as always leaving the teams alone.

lechiffre10 10y ago

It wasn't left alone. Instagram's API became a lot more restrictive after Facebook's acquisition and they are implementing a lot of features from Facebook's obsession with competing with Snapchat ( Live, stories etc...) Not saying it's a bad thing.