7 ms·

I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show off-y. On Face

by admn2 8y ago

I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show off-y. On Facebook, it was a bit stigmatized to post a picture of an expensive purchase, amazing house interior, fancy vacation, or workout picture of your physique. However, it's the entire point of Instagram. Couple that in with all the brands and other accounts of inspiration for whatever you're into and you have a lot of reasons to open the app constantly. Edit: Also worth pointing out that you could argue Facebook's infrastructure was hugely important to their growth. Instagram was literally almost anonymous profiles. However, once FB got everyone to connect their FB accounts (which they may have been able to do with only a phone number as I did notice this became a requirement), they gave advertisers and brands a lot off resources and tools (and reasons) to devote money and energy to the platform.

ceejayoz 8y ago
For me, it's loading up Instagram and seeing just a bunch of interesting photos. Minimal memes, no link shares, and it's rare a comments thread that devolves into insanity.
- beauzero 8y ago
  ...for me...comments are rare. It is a welcome thing.
- admn2 8y ago
  Yeah, which is another reason they got rid of the chronological timeline. People were opening the app so often and frequently, they had to ensure fresh content. This way they can track which photos you've seen, and make sure to float to the top ones you missed. Edit: All the points below are true too, of course. I do find myself subconsciously opening instagram a scary amount, so seems one reason to switch it up would be to always have fresh content. I do agree that once you get to where you last left off, you're likely to exit the app.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    If only it worked how you describe.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    The real reason behind the non-chronological feed is to keep you longer on the app. With a chronological feed, you remember where you left off, so when you scroll down to that point you know you’re all caught up and there isn’t more to see. With a non-chronological feed, you end up scrolling down way more by fear of missing out, giving them the opportunity to show you way more cancer aka ads.
    - delecti 8y ago
      Your cynical explanation doesn't fit with the actual behavior. They sort it so things they think you'll like most will be at the top, but once you've seen everything, they don't change the order it again. If you always scroll down to where you left off, you will always see everything, and there won't be older content mixed in with the stuff you're seeing now. Given a set of ordered posts you might see ACDB, then when you check in next you'll see HFGEACDB whereas in a chronological timeline it'd end up at HGFEDCBA, but once you've seen that out of order "DCBA>ACDB" section it stays in that order.
- xkjkls 8y ago
  I honestly feel stories are probably one of the biggest drivers of current growth. It's kind of cool to have a easy way to scroll through my friends and get an update of "oh, I guess Jeremy went on a hike; Monica is harvesting blackberries; etc"
  - varrock 8y ago
    I can't emphasize how important it is that companies like Snapchat and Instagram have made this such a big business. Remember when people would Tweet out with text that they were doing this? For example, your friend Tweets: "Wow, what a nice hike today!" The reason I give so much credit to Snapchat is they changed the way we do this. Why would I give you this kind of update in my life with simple text, when instead, I could actually take a picture? Snapchat got so popular because they took the boring Tweets people weren't getting much attention for and made people's trivial daily tasks that much more interesting for your followers.
Alex3917 8y ago
http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-drive-innovaiton/ http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-dr... tl;dr — Every successful social startup should bend, but not completely violate, one or more social taboos, e.g. one of the 7 deadly sins. Edit: When designing www.fwdeveryone.com, we purposely incorporated Pav's theory by building the platform around the taboo of getting involved in other people's relationships, in this case by letting people read (and reply to) other people's email conversations.
- jedberg 8y ago
  > Spotify allows consumers to binge on music for a flat fee, however it is crucial to note that the musicians in this case significantly lose out on revenue. As a side note, it amuses me to see this repeated so often, given that it's not true. If you do the math, Spotify pays about the same as a radio play. You just have to remember that each radio play goes out to a few hundred thousand to a few million people each time. The reason artists don't like Spotify is not because they pay poorly, it's because they pay fairly. When you get a radio play, it's assumed that all the people the station reaches listened to the song. Spotify knows exactly how many people listened to a song, and pay accordingly. Unpopular artists don't like this because they get accurate counts.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    One important difference is that, at least historically, radio play could actually stimulate the purchase of music so that you could listen to it at a time of your choosing (and without ads). Whereas, streaming on-demand music is increasingly a substitute for owning the tracks for a lot of people.
    - jedberg 8y ago
      Again, this is something that is more fair to the consumer at the expense of the artist. The only reason you owned an album was because you couldn't listen when you wanted to, and were forced to buy it. Now it's better for the consumer, but not the artist.
code_duck 8y ago
Instagram is basically Twitter where you have to post a photo. I agree that Instagram could not have grown to this size without being part of Facebook.
- murukesh_s 8y ago
  I think it could have been the other way around. Media and folks could have compared the growth of Instagram, which would have been a competing product with Facebook, and it could have given good mileage to Instagram, especially after the privacy fiasco and hate towards Facebook, Instagram could have been positioned as a Facebook replacement and there by shooting up it's value further.
  - tomnipotent 8y ago
    > Facebook replacement Instagram has always been supplementary to Facebook, it was never a candidate to replace it.
    - xkjkls 8y ago
      Yeah, I think given their UI/model it is pretty difficult to have any long form discussion on Instagram. The "news" part of the newsfeed as always been FB's killer app. Or at least that and event planning, though I think it's not impossible for Instagram to develop a product around that.
      - colatkinson 8y ago
        The only "long form discussions" I frequently see on Facebook are bad political arguments. Most people don't really care what Uncle Billy has to say about millenials. Agree on the event planning though. I think an Instagram Events would immediately get adopted by many young people.
      - CodeCube 8y ago
        I keep hearing (anecdotally, of course), that people are starting to prefer Instagram because long form discussions are more difficult there. They seem to be seeking an escape from the news. Fair point about the event planning ... if FB were to cross-launch the sane event planning DB on instagram and whatsapp, I suspect that would be pretty much a killer app.
thanatropism 8y ago
Two people on my Facebook who went to Russia for the World Cup are basically posting photos from every game. I figure the games they haven't selfied are the ones they didn't buy tickets for.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
MisterTea 8y ago
> I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show off-y. It's a fact, not theory because facebook is where you are friends with mom, dad, grandma, and aunt suzie. IG is where you like hot women, fetishes, gucci bags, and whatever nonsense mom /dad/aut suzie might disapprove of. You keep up appearances on FB and get nasty on IG.
chaostheory 8y ago
For me instagram is facebook lite. I don't need the bloat of apps, rants, or links. I just want to see everyone's pictures. I got sick of FB long before the privacy scares.
narrator 8y ago
I think Instagram works because it's not as viral as Facebook. It's difficult to get into political flamewars. Also reposts and forwards look pathetically lame on Instagram, so people tend to post more original content.

by admn2 8y ago

ceejayoz 8y ago

For me, it's loading up Instagram and seeing just a bunch of interesting photos. Minimal memes, no link shares, and it's rare a comments thread that devolves into insanity.

beauzero 8y ago
...for me...comments are rare. It is a welcome thing.
admn2 8y ago
Yeah, which is another reason they got rid of the chronological timeline. People were opening the app so often and frequently, they had to ensure fresh content. This way they can track which photos you've seen, and make sure to float to the top ones you missed. Edit: All the points below are true too, of course. I do find myself subconsciously opening instagram a scary amount, so seems one reason to switch it up would be to always have fresh content. I do agree that once you get to where you last left off, you're likely to exit the app.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  If only it worked how you describe.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  The real reason behind the non-chronological feed is to keep you longer on the app. With a chronological feed, you remember where you left off, so when you scroll down to that point you know you’re all caught up and there isn’t more to see. With a non-chronological feed, you end up scrolling down way more by fear of missing out, giving them the opportunity to show you way more cancer aka ads.
  - delecti 8y ago
    Your cynical explanation doesn't fit with the actual behavior. They sort it so things they think you'll like most will be at the top, but once you've seen everything, they don't change the order it again. If you always scroll down to where you left off, you will always see everything, and there won't be older content mixed in with the stuff you're seeing now. Given a set of ordered posts you might see ACDB, then when you check in next you'll see HFGEACDB whereas in a chronological timeline it'd end up at HGFEDCBA, but once you've seen that out of order "DCBA>ACDB" section it stays in that order.
xkjkls 8y ago
I honestly feel stories are probably one of the biggest drivers of current growth. It's kind of cool to have a easy way to scroll through my friends and get an update of "oh, I guess Jeremy went on a hike; Monica is harvesting blackberries; etc"
- varrock 8y ago
  I can't emphasize how important it is that companies like Snapchat and Instagram have made this such a big business. Remember when people would Tweet out with text that they were doing this? For example, your friend Tweets: "Wow, what a nice hike today!" The reason I give so much credit to Snapchat is they changed the way we do this. Why would I give you this kind of update in my life with simple text, when instead, I could actually take a picture? Snapchat got so popular because they took the boring Tweets people weren't getting much attention for and made people's trivial daily tasks that much more interesting for your followers.

Alex3917 8y ago

http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-drive-innovaiton/ http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-dr... tl;dr — Every successful social startup should bend, but not completely violate, one or more social taboos, e.g. one of the 7 deadly sins. Edit: When designing www.fwdeveryone.com, we purposely incorporated Pav's theory by building the platform around the taboo of getting involved in other people's relationships, in this case by letting people read (and reply to) other people's email conversations.

jedberg 8y ago
> Spotify allows consumers to binge on music for a flat fee, however it is crucial to note that the musicians in this case significantly lose out on revenue. As a side note, it amuses me to see this repeated so often, given that it's not true. If you do the math, Spotify pays about the same as a radio play. You just have to remember that each radio play goes out to a few hundred thousand to a few million people each time. The reason artists don't like Spotify is not because they pay poorly, it's because they pay fairly. When you get a radio play, it's assumed that all the people the station reaches listened to the song. Spotify knows exactly how many people listened to a song, and pay accordingly. Unpopular artists don't like this because they get accurate counts.
- ghaff 8y ago
  One important difference is that, at least historically, radio play could actually stimulate the purchase of music so that you could listen to it at a time of your choosing (and without ads). Whereas, streaming on-demand music is increasingly a substitute for owning the tracks for a lot of people.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Again, this is something that is more fair to the consumer at the expense of the artist. The only reason you owned an album was because you couldn't listen when you wanted to, and were forced to buy it. Now it's better for the consumer, but not the artist.

code_duck 8y ago

Instagram is basically Twitter where you have to post a photo. I agree that Instagram could not have grown to this size without being part of Facebook.

murukesh_s 8y ago
I think it could have been the other way around. Media and folks could have compared the growth of Instagram, which would have been a competing product with Facebook, and it could have given good mileage to Instagram, especially after the privacy fiasco and hate towards Facebook, Instagram could have been positioned as a Facebook replacement and there by shooting up it's value further.
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  > Facebook replacement Instagram has always been supplementary to Facebook, it was never a candidate to replace it.
  - xkjkls 8y ago
    Yeah, I think given their UI/model it is pretty difficult to have any long form discussion on Instagram. The "news" part of the newsfeed as always been FB's killer app. Or at least that and event planning, though I think it's not impossible for Instagram to develop a product around that.
    - colatkinson 8y ago
      The only "long form discussions" I frequently see on Facebook are bad political arguments. Most people don't really care what Uncle Billy has to say about millenials. Agree on the event planning though. I think an Instagram Events would immediately get adopted by many young people.
    - CodeCube 8y ago
      I keep hearing (anecdotally, of course), that people are starting to prefer Instagram because long form discussions are more difficult there. They seem to be seeking an escape from the news. Fair point about the event planning ... if FB were to cross-launch the sane event planning DB on instagram and whatsapp, I suspect that would be pretty much a killer app.

thanatropism 8y ago

Two people on my Facebook who went to Russia for the World Cup are basically posting photos from every game. I figure the games they haven't selfied are the ones they didn't buy tickets for.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

MisterTea 8y ago

> I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show off-y. It's a fact, not theory because facebook is where you are friends with mom, dad, grandma, and aunt suzie. IG is where you like hot women, fetishes, gucci bags, and whatever nonsense mom /dad/aut suzie might disapprove of. You keep up appearances on FB and get nasty on IG.

chaostheory 8y ago

For me instagram is facebook lite. I don't need the bloat of apps, rants, or links. I just want to see everyone's pictures. I got sick of FB long before the privacy scares.

narrator 8y ago

I think Instagram works because it's not as viral as Facebook. It's difficult to get into political flamewars. Also reposts and forwards look pathetically lame on Instagram, so people tend to post more original content.