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Instagram is a photo service in a sea of other photo services. You're mischaracterizing Instagram. It's not "a photo service," it's the photo service. 30M iOS

Instagram is a photo service in a sea of other photo services. You're mischaracterizing Instagram. It's not "a photo service," it's the photo service. 30M iOS users plus 1M new Android users in 12 hours.[0] Instagram is the main mobile photo app. With this purchase, Facebook strengthens their mobile position the way Google strengthened their content position with YT. The acquisitions are very similar. (edited for a stronger point) [0]http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/04/07/instagrams-exploding-adds-a-million-android-users-in-12-hours-and-raising-50-million/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/04/07/instagr...

waterlesscloud 15y ago
I suspect the main photo app is the default android camera, by a long long long looooooong distance.
- achompas 15y ago
  Two serious, non-cheeky questions: --does Android's Camera app have social sharing features? --does it provide some kind of cloud-based sharing support? I see the above, plus Instagram's 30M+ user base, as their main benefits.
  - tkahn6 15y ago
    Because of Android's intent system you can share it over literally any social vector installed on the phone. Here's a screen shot of the sharing options shared via Dropbox. http://db.tt/w456Cv47 http://db.tt/w456Cv47 It's a little faded because the screen shot button combo includes the back button on my phone... not the greatest design.
minalecs 15y ago
i hate using the metric of downloads or users.. the most important metric that we don't get from mobile app companies is daily active users. Filters on android have become commodity, and I imagine a lot of users just installed to try and see what the hype is about.
georgespencer 15y ago
It isn't the photo service: Facebook. Flickr. Picasa. Imageshack. Twitpic. Imgur... To name a few. Instagram doesn't have more users than Facebook. Hell, it doesn't even have more users than Flickr (51m) or Photobucket (50m). Instagram is a small part of the web photo ecosystem. It's a very peculiar play by Facebook, and not at all comparable to Google & YouTube other than the fact that Google acquired YouTube, and Facebook acquired Instagram. Instagram represents a diversification of Facebook's offering, and one which says "it's cheaper for us to spend $1bn acquiring Instagram than it is to make a compelling mobile photo app to usurp them".
- sbarre 15y ago
  I think he's talking about the mobile space specifically.. And to go further: I have a Flickr account, I have some Picasa galleries.. I rarely visit those sites except to upload a batch and then go elsewhere. I use Instagram 5-10 times daily when in transit, on lunch, while watching TV, etc...
- mkramlich 15y ago
  It's probably too late, but if Facebook would like to hedge their bets by seeing if they could make an Instagram workalike & user traction for much much less than $1B -- for say, oh, a mere $1M up front and $9M upon delivery -- I'd be willing to take a shot. One man team. Give me say 2 months absolute tops. I deliver the mobile app, website, backend. Facebook brings the massive user base. Oh wait, again, they could already do this, without needing me. Or Instagram. So, put me down as another guy who thinks it's a misspend on Facebook's part, partly due to perhaps being drunk on their own "funny money" valuations.
  - Flenser 15y ago
    But then Instagram would still exist as an alternative social network for sharing photo's, outside of Facebook's control.
    - georgespencer 15y ago
      The assertion is that, for a billion dollars, Facebook should be able to create a significantly better app and market it better (or 'at all') than Instagram do. Facebook have got 721m users and all the data they need to constitute incredible market research. In twelve months if Facebook couldn't build an app which is competitive to Instagram, and get it installed with ~5.5% of their user-base, I'd be really fucking worried. Also consider this: Twitter add "Photos" to their filtering options adjacent to "Connect" and "Discover". So you can just click a Photo button and see all your connections' photographs in a stream. Oops, they just went halfway towards creating most people's Instagram experience.
Tichy 15y ago
Does the 1m in one hour really mean much? We've heard about the iPhone app, not it was available for Android, so we checked it out (except not everybody did, I did not). There won't be 1m new users per hour, it was just the first hour.
- achompas 15y ago
  That statistic represents pent-up demand. It's now available on the mobile OS with the largest share of the smartphone market. You don't expect Instagram to double its user base within a year? Maybe even more?

waterlesscloud 15y ago

I suspect the main photo app is the default android camera, by a long long long looooooong distance.

achompas 15y ago
Two serious, non-cheeky questions: --does Android's Camera app have social sharing features? --does it provide some kind of cloud-based sharing support? I see the above, plus Instagram's 30M+ user base, as their main benefits.
- tkahn6 15y ago
  Because of Android's intent system you can share it over literally any social vector installed on the phone. Here's a screen shot of the sharing options shared via Dropbox. http://db.tt/w456Cv47 http://db.tt/w456Cv47 It's a little faded because the screen shot button combo includes the back button on my phone... not the greatest design.

minalecs 15y ago

i hate using the metric of downloads or users.. the most important metric that we don't get from mobile app companies is daily active users. Filters on android have become commodity, and I imagine a lot of users just installed to try and see what the hype is about.

georgespencer 15y ago

It isn't the photo service: Facebook. Flickr. Picasa. Imageshack. Twitpic. Imgur... To name a few. Instagram doesn't have more users than Facebook. Hell, it doesn't even have more users than Flickr (51m) or Photobucket (50m). Instagram is a small part of the web photo ecosystem. It's a very peculiar play by Facebook, and not at all comparable to Google & YouTube other than the fact that Google acquired YouTube, and Facebook acquired Instagram. Instagram represents a diversification of Facebook's offering, and one which says "it's cheaper for us to spend $1bn acquiring Instagram than it is to make a compelling mobile photo app to usurp them".

sbarre 15y ago
I think he's talking about the mobile space specifically.. And to go further: I have a Flickr account, I have some Picasa galleries.. I rarely visit those sites except to upload a batch and then go elsewhere. I use Instagram 5-10 times daily when in transit, on lunch, while watching TV, etc...
mkramlich 15y ago
It's probably too late, but if Facebook would like to hedge their bets by seeing if they could make an Instagram workalike & user traction for much much less than $1B -- for say, oh, a mere $1M up front and $9M upon delivery -- I'd be willing to take a shot. One man team. Give me say 2 months absolute tops. I deliver the mobile app, website, backend. Facebook brings the massive user base. Oh wait, again, they could already do this, without needing me. Or Instagram. So, put me down as another guy who thinks it's a misspend on Facebook's part, partly due to perhaps being drunk on their own "funny money" valuations.
- Flenser 15y ago
  But then Instagram would still exist as an alternative social network for sharing photo's, outside of Facebook's control.
  - georgespencer 15y ago
    The assertion is that, for a billion dollars, Facebook should be able to create a significantly better app and market it better (or 'at all') than Instagram do. Facebook have got 721m users and all the data they need to constitute incredible market research. In twelve months if Facebook couldn't build an app which is competitive to Instagram, and get it installed with ~5.5% of their user-base, I'd be really fucking worried. Also consider this: Twitter add "Photos" to their filtering options adjacent to "Connect" and "Discover". So you can just click a Photo button and see all your connections' photographs in a stream. Oops, they just went halfway towards creating most people's Instagram experience.

Tichy 15y ago

Does the 1m in one hour really mean much? We've heard about the iPhone app, not it was available for Android, so we checked it out (except not everybody did, I did not). There won't be 1m new users per hour, it was just the first hour.

achompas 15y ago
That statistic represents pent-up demand. It's now available on the mobile OS with the largest share of the smartphone market. You don't expect Instagram to double its user base within a year? Maybe even more?