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How did Instagram change since the purchase by Facebook? (honest question, I don't use Instagram at all)

yajoe 13y ago
I'm not a heavy user of Instagram and am unqualified to answer how the product would be different were the company independent. However, the most public change to Instagram that many blamed on facebook were the ToS changes that I've heard led to a non-trivial dip in engagement (the primary metric for facebook leadership): Original Story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 Response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939849 Backpedal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950853 I have a very good friend who works at Parse, and I have nothing but deep respect and admiration for him and his work. He is well-deserving of this exit. He does not subscribe to the pessimism about the new 'facebook overlords.' I've known him long enough that I would expect him to tell me if that weren't the case. Will facebook always keep to its PR statements? Only as long as they makes sense for their business... I'd vote 6 months to a year, personally :)
itsprofitbaron 13y ago
Nothing has really changed with Instagram since Facebook acquired it, there was the TOS debate but that was overblown. Instagram’s core operation is around being able to quickly take and share photos & adding filters etc and that hasn’t really changed. The only thing they really have done, is launched on the web (they just launched on Android a few days before the acquisition) and scaled up the Instagram team. Likewise, they also enlarged photos on Facebook itself (although that was for everyone not just Instagram) - the fact that they haven’t even given them a tab in their app shows how autonomously Facebook have let Instagram run since acquiring it etc. Having said that, Instagram now has to play by Facebook’s rules and I expect that we’re more likely to see further integration between the two going forward this year such as advertising etc.
killwhitey 13y ago
They dropped Twitter card support so you can no longer preview Instagram photos on twitter or inside the twitter apps.
- bennyg 13y ago
  Which is such a lame "gotcha'" by FB. If they really cared about user engagement then surely removing user engagement, even in a competing, but tangential product, isn't the way to go.
- jc4p 13y ago
  That was Twitter, not Instagram, and it was well before twitter cards had an API. Keep in mind Twitter also removed "find your friends using Twitter" functionality from Instagram too.

yajoe 13y ago

I'm not a heavy user of Instagram and am unqualified to answer how the product would be different were the company independent. However, the most public change to Instagram that many blamed on facebook were the ToS changes that I've heard led to a non-trivial dip in engagement (the primary metric for facebook leadership): Original Story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 Response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939849 Backpedal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950853 I have a very good friend who works at Parse, and I have nothing but deep respect and admiration for him and his work. He is well-deserving of this exit. He does not subscribe to the pessimism about the new 'facebook overlords.' I've known him long enough that I would expect him to tell me if that weren't the case. Will facebook always keep to its PR statements? Only as long as they makes sense for their business... I'd vote 6 months to a year, personally :)

itsprofitbaron 13y ago

Nothing has really changed with Instagram since Facebook acquired it, there was the TOS debate but that was overblown. Instagram’s core operation is around being able to quickly take and share photos & adding filters etc and that hasn’t really changed. The only thing they really have done, is launched on the web (they just launched on Android a few days before the acquisition) and scaled up the Instagram team. Likewise, they also enlarged photos on Facebook itself (although that was for everyone not just Instagram) - the fact that they haven’t even given them a tab in their app shows how autonomously Facebook have let Instagram run since acquiring it etc. Having said that, Instagram now has to play by Facebook’s rules and I expect that we’re more likely to see further integration between the two going forward this year such as advertising etc.

killwhitey 13y ago

They dropped Twitter card support so you can no longer preview Instagram photos on twitter or inside the twitter apps.

bennyg 13y ago
Which is such a lame "gotcha'" by FB. If they really cared about user engagement then surely removing user engagement, even in a competing, but tangential product, isn't the way to go.
jc4p 13y ago
That was Twitter, not Instagram, and it was well before twitter cards had an API. Keep in mind Twitter also removed "find your friends using Twitter" functionality from Instagram too.