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It didn't have search, trending topics, DMs, a web version, non-Instagram account creation, or availability in Europe. All are very popular. No real innovation

It didn't have search, trending topics, DMs, a web version, non-Instagram account creation, or availability in Europe. All are very popular. No real innovation over Twitter either, but that's not unexpected. This is excusable in a normal startup MVP, but not when you promote it all over Instagram.

nebula8804 3y ago
You are making an assumption that there is a tighter coupling with Instagram's infra than in reality...especially at launch. I could see maybe trending topics as possibly a feature that would be nice to have at launch but the others? The following are my thoughts if I were a PM choosing features. search - What are you going to search for when the app is brand new? I believe we did have user search as I recall using it so you must be referring to content search. DMs - Do we know what their anticipated user projections were going to be? I could see this feature being a worthless endeavor vs other things they could have done if the userbase ended up being small. a web version - These guys are a mobile first company, the large % of users are on mobile, their existing web properties are either in maintenance mode(facebook) or just thin wrappers(instagram). I can see why this wasn't a priority. non-Instagram account creation - Sounds like either this was a way to bypass overhead in their typical new user generation or they felt one click signup from IG would encourage more active users/reduce issues of bots which may not have been thought out at launch. It would be interesting to learn more about this unclear part of the infra. Europe - Even for big company launches they typically american first, likely for the same reasons why we dont see big new tech companies ever launched from Europe anymore: too many little issues dealing with all the different countries in the union, issues with complying with various regulations.

nebula8804 3y ago

You are making an assumption that there is a tighter coupling with Instagram's infra than in reality...especially at launch. I could see maybe trending topics as possibly a feature that would be nice to have at launch but the others? The following are my thoughts if I were a PM choosing features. search - What are you going to search for when the app is brand new? I believe we did have user search as I recall using it so you must be referring to content search. DMs - Do we know what their anticipated user projections were going to be? I could see this feature being a worthless endeavor vs other things they could have done if the userbase ended up being small. a web version - These guys are a mobile first company, the large % of users are on mobile, their existing web properties are either in maintenance mode(facebook) or just thin wrappers(instagram). I can see why this wasn't a priority. non-Instagram account creation - Sounds like either this was a way to bypass overhead in their typical new user generation or they felt one click signup from IG would encourage more active users/reduce issues of bots which may not have been thought out at launch. It would be interesting to learn more about this unclear part of the infra. Europe - Even for big company launches they typically american first, likely for the same reasons why we dont see big new tech companies ever launched from Europe anymore: too many little issues dealing with all the different countries in the union, issues with complying with various regulations.