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There are already several 3rd parties on the web offering this service (e.g., web.stagram.com, statigr.am), wonder how they'll take this.

by nsns 14y ago

jonknee 14y ago
They'll go away. I wouldn't be surprised to see a TOS change soon to ensure that.
iamben 14y ago
Just posted the same thing on the other thread. Poor guys. I suspect this will butcher their traffic.
- acdha 14y ago
  It's an incredibly obvious direction for Instagram to expand in so I'd hope they had some plan for this
  - iamben 14y ago
    Rake in as much cash as possible from their ads whilst Instagram aren't doing it and then wind it down? I can't see what other benefit they'd bring over the official site (except as another post noted, RSS feeds).
    - acdha 14y ago
      Exactly - it's like the Twitter developer relationship, where you just have to assume that they're going to coopt your business at any time if all you're doing is repurposing their API.
- terhechte 14y ago
  That's the danger that you get when your main product lives of someone else's main product. I'm the author of InstaDesk, an Instagram client for the Mac, and I've also always assumed that this day would come. This will probably affect me too, but not as hard as web.stagram and the like, since I'm offering several "pro" features that will probably never make it to the Instagram website. My next release will allow the users to use "comment reply" templates, see which comments they've already replied to, download images for specific tags, etc, and much more. All more suited to people who use Instagram to connect to huge audiences (people with several thousand followers, etc). In the worst case, I'll need to raise prices to account for a smaller niche market. But let's see, it may also result in more Instagram users since it will be easier now to "experience" the network. I also hope they finally allow user registration on the web. Currently, users can only register from within the iPhone or Android app, which makes it difficult for people to just register in order to follow a couple of friends. But yeah, since I've kinda expected this to happen at some point, I've been busy in the past months to work on two separate products, that are slowly nearing completion.
  - iamben 14y ago
    Benedikt - I bought and loved Instadesk many months back (before I got the Nexus 7, which is now my primary Instagram browser). I really hope this doesn't hit you too hard and wish you the best for your other products :-) That said, I really, really hope they don't allow people to post or register from the web. Spam is bad enough already.
    - terhechte 14y ago
      Thanks! InstaDesk still has many features that their current web implementation doesn't have, so in the short term I expect the hit to be marginal, but in the long term it's good that I have other products lined up :) You're right about the spam, but it always saddens me if somebody buys my app and can't use it due to the lack of an IG account (I'm stating this restriction right in the first sentence of the app description, but some people don't even read that).
  - wilfra 14y ago
    I saw Kevin Systrom speak at Pando Monthly and he was asked this question in the QA, how they were doing to deal with developers and whether they'd be like Twitter (to which everybody laughed, but the question asker didn't expand). Systrom said that they very much wanted people to do things that they themselves don't plan to do. He gave the example of a company printing photos to t-shirts. He left it mostly unstated but it was strongly implied that where their product goals are the same as what people are developing with their API, they'll have no reservations competing with people - or even forcing them to stop doing things. So ya - if you want to be an Instagram developer it would seem the correct strategic path would be to do things they aren't doing and will probably never be interested in doing. Kudos to Facebook for not falling victim to the innovators dilemma, and allowing Instagram to develop into a service that could very well end up killing what we know as Facebook today.
    - terhechte 14y ago
      Thanks for the info. It is good to know that they're not considering turning off the API or limiting it. There's very little information on the official channels about this.
timdorr 14y ago
This is only a single user's profile and stream of photos. Those websites offer web-based Instagram clients, which includes things like your incoming photo stream and the popular lists. Until they replicate those features on the web as well, then they'll still need to exist.
timfletcher 14y ago
In the case of my app, monogr.am, we provide a custom designed gallery with options to choose any images from your feed. We have custom domains etc. I don't see this as a competitor at all for our market - people who really put time and effort into their images. Instagram's really just showing your latest photos online and a few curated ones at the top. The user has no control at all over which images are shown.
- pestaa 14y ago
  Not so long ago IIRC Twitter closed the gates before orthogonal consumers (i.e. they were not competitors either). I wouldn't be surprised much if Instagram/Facebook used similar tactics.
- hnriot 14y ago
  Considering yours is a paid service, I would hope you're already thinking of something else, because im sure the FB TOS will block you and besides, if someone wants a customizable free version then they just use tumblr with one of the millions of these (or make one by hand) If your product service offered a channel from instagram to tumblr and it didn't violate the TOS for FB then your product might have a future, but likely only as a free offering.
  - timfletcher 14y ago
    We're planning to support a variety of services, not put all our eggs in one basket. Tumblr, webstagram and all these sites do not offer the same service as us. Maybe our marketing needs work. We're paid because we allow you to CHOOSE ANY of your Instagram photos to make a portfolio from through caching a user's feed and using the realtime API to keep it up to date. All the other services simply wrap the API and show your photo stream - Now Instagram offers that too so these services offer nothing more.
    - hnriot 14y ago
      But how hard is it to post photos to a custom theme'd tumblr for free? Being able to select which photos from the instagram feed end up on a tumblr page isn't a feature worth $5/month. It's trivial to share photos to both instagram and tumblr

There are already several 3rd parties on the web offering this service (e.g., web.stagram.com, statigr.am), wonder how they'll take this.

by nsns 14y ago

There are already several 3rd parties on the web offering this service (e.g., web.stagram.com, statigr.am), wonder how they'll take this.

jonknee 14y ago

They'll go away. I wouldn't be surprised to see a TOS change soon to ensure that.

iamben 14y ago

Just posted the same thing on the other thread. Poor guys. I suspect this will butcher their traffic.

acdha 14y ago
It's an incredibly obvious direction for Instagram to expand in so I'd hope they had some plan for this
- iamben 14y ago
  Rake in as much cash as possible from their ads whilst Instagram aren't doing it and then wind it down? I can't see what other benefit they'd bring over the official site (except as another post noted, RSS feeds).
  - acdha 14y ago
    Exactly - it's like the Twitter developer relationship, where you just have to assume that they're going to coopt your business at any time if all you're doing is repurposing their API.
terhechte 14y ago
That's the danger that you get when your main product lives of someone else's main product. I'm the author of InstaDesk, an Instagram client for the Mac, and I've also always assumed that this day would come. This will probably affect me too, but not as hard as web.stagram and the like, since I'm offering several "pro" features that will probably never make it to the Instagram website. My next release will allow the users to use "comment reply" templates, see which comments they've already replied to, download images for specific tags, etc, and much more. All more suited to people who use Instagram to connect to huge audiences (people with several thousand followers, etc). In the worst case, I'll need to raise prices to account for a smaller niche market. But let's see, it may also result in more Instagram users since it will be easier now to "experience" the network. I also hope they finally allow user registration on the web. Currently, users can only register from within the iPhone or Android app, which makes it difficult for people to just register in order to follow a couple of friends. But yeah, since I've kinda expected this to happen at some point, I've been busy in the past months to work on two separate products, that are slowly nearing completion.
- iamben 14y ago
  Benedikt - I bought and loved Instadesk many months back (before I got the Nexus 7, which is now my primary Instagram browser). I really hope this doesn't hit you too hard and wish you the best for your other products :-) That said, I really, really hope they don't allow people to post or register from the web. Spam is bad enough already.
  - terhechte 14y ago
    Thanks! InstaDesk still has many features that their current web implementation doesn't have, so in the short term I expect the hit to be marginal, but in the long term it's good that I have other products lined up :) You're right about the spam, but it always saddens me if somebody buys my app and can't use it due to the lack of an IG account (I'm stating this restriction right in the first sentence of the app description, but some people don't even read that).
- wilfra 14y ago
  I saw Kevin Systrom speak at Pando Monthly and he was asked this question in the QA, how they were doing to deal with developers and whether they'd be like Twitter (to which everybody laughed, but the question asker didn't expand). Systrom said that they very much wanted people to do things that they themselves don't plan to do. He gave the example of a company printing photos to t-shirts. He left it mostly unstated but it was strongly implied that where their product goals are the same as what people are developing with their API, they'll have no reservations competing with people - or even forcing them to stop doing things. So ya - if you want to be an Instagram developer it would seem the correct strategic path would be to do things they aren't doing and will probably never be interested in doing. Kudos to Facebook for not falling victim to the innovators dilemma, and allowing Instagram to develop into a service that could very well end up killing what we know as Facebook today.
  - terhechte 14y ago
    Thanks for the info. It is good to know that they're not considering turning off the API or limiting it. There's very little information on the official channels about this.

timdorr 14y ago

This is only a single user's profile and stream of photos. Those websites offer web-based Instagram clients, which includes things like your incoming photo stream and the popular lists. Until they replicate those features on the web as well, then they'll still need to exist.

timfletcher 14y ago

In the case of my app, monogr.am, we provide a custom designed gallery with options to choose any images from your feed. We have custom domains etc. I don't see this as a competitor at all for our market - people who really put time and effort into their images. Instagram's really just showing your latest photos online and a few curated ones at the top. The user has no control at all over which images are shown.

pestaa 14y ago
Not so long ago IIRC Twitter closed the gates before orthogonal consumers (i.e. they were not competitors either). I wouldn't be surprised much if Instagram/Facebook used similar tactics.
hnriot 14y ago
Considering yours is a paid service, I would hope you're already thinking of something else, because im sure the FB TOS will block you and besides, if someone wants a customizable free version then they just use tumblr with one of the millions of these (or make one by hand) If your product service offered a channel from instagram to tumblr and it didn't violate the TOS for FB then your product might have a future, but likely only as a free offering.
- timfletcher 14y ago
  We're planning to support a variety of services, not put all our eggs in one basket. Tumblr, webstagram and all these sites do not offer the same service as us. Maybe our marketing needs work. We're paid because we allow you to CHOOSE ANY of your Instagram photos to make a portfolio from through caching a user's feed and using the realtime API to keep it up to date. All the other services simply wrap the API and show your photo stream - Now Instagram offers that too so these services offer nothing more.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    But how hard is it to post photos to a custom theme'd tumblr for free? Being able to select which photos from the instagram feed end up on a tumblr page isn't a feature worth $5/month. It's trivial to share photos to both instagram and tumblr