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Sigh... Instagram talks a good game, but I find this to be more unimaginative dreck. Look, I get it, you need to clone Vine to stay competitive, but it's not n

Sigh... Instagram talks a good game, but I find this to be more unimaginative dreck. Look, I get it, you need to clone Vine to stay competitive, but it's not new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm. Most of these social startups promise unique experiences based on new forms of social interaction, but really only deliver more ways to watch cats dance on the internet. Bring on the hardcore technology like better Ethernet Switching, Less Apps please.

psbp 13y ago
This is just a clever way to get video ads integrated into the facebook stream. Relevant: http://adage.com/abstract?article_id=242165 http://adage.com/abstract?article_id=242165
- andrewhillman 13y ago
  Not sure why people think this is about FB running ads. I highly doubt FB would consider pre-rolling an ad on a 15 second clip. Youtube is the king of pre-rolls... they probably have a min length requirement before they will insert a pre-roll. Ads don't make much sense on a 15 second clip.
  - psbp 13y ago
    RTA, it's about having 15-second ads.
    - lleims 13y ago
      I agree with this. This is a clever way of soon rolling video ads on your Facebook timeline. Audio could be disabled by default and the experience would feel less intrusive. Systrom specifically said that videos will post natively to the timeline. -- Q: Will videos post natively, on FB Timeline? A: Yes. You’ll be able to see videos right in your timeline.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    I don't think people are talking about pre-rolls here, they're talking about FB using it to run video ads in your newsfeed.
onedev 13y ago
You don't think their stabilization technology is imaginative?
- psbp 13y ago
  How does this compare with Youtube Capture's stabilization? I haven't used either. *If this is any indication youtube's is pretty good, but not as seamless: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-stabilization-on-youtube.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-stabilizati... Though we haven't seen a video comparison yet.
  - samstave 13y ago
    Or Luma?
- phatbyte 13y ago
  Video stabilization has been around for ages. I personally don't find it anything disruptive or imaginative. Even on the iphone there are lots of app for video stabilization.
- atestu 13y ago
  It's only available on iPhone 4S/5… they're probably just using the iOS SDK!
  - josh2600 13y ago
    This x10. Shouting out about how awesome your tech is when it's someone else's tech that you didn't exclusively-license is lame.
    - onedev 13y ago
      It's completely proprietary tech developed by a team of image processing specialists on the Instagram team. It in no way uses the iOS SDK.
dopamean 13y ago
Where did they say it was new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm?
- dannyr 13y ago
  Kevin Systrom: "Cinema will change video forever"
  - josh2600 13y ago
    I saw Kevin Systrom speak on a panel moderated by Kevin Rose where he said "Instagram is not a photo company, it's a communication company". While it might be a communication company someday, it very much is a photo/video company now and they should spout fewer pithy aphorisms and spend more time building kickass technology. IMHO.
badclient 13y ago
but it's not new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm It's called marketing.
dakrisht 13y ago
Just another recycled, cloned feature from an existing application. Consumers simply don't care about "hardcore technology" - Ethernet switching? That's like telling a consumer that Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet - they'll look at you and say "Facebook is the Internet." I couldn't agree more with the "less app please" statement - but we live in a very skewed reality these days. Apps like Vine take off in weeks from people posting the dumbest, worst, lowest quality videos of their cats and themselves eating food. Instagram destroyed photography by making an 8MP smartphone camera <1MP with a square polaroid-like frame and the worst destructive filters of all-time. It's just a vicious cycle of bullshit. When will it end? The state of technology, rather consumer technology, is indicative of the consumer - and unfortunately, the average consumer isn't very bright.
- timmm 13y ago
  I actually like adding filters to my photos, not sure if that makes me dumb or a hipster but it kinda just makes them look more surreal at times.
  - dakrisht 13y ago
    It doesn't make you dumb or a hipster or anything like that. It's simply how you like your photos - and there's nothing wrong with that. As someone who has been involved with photography since the days of 35mm film and someone who has developed their own B&W in a lab - Instagram (and Vine) are regressions of the art. They utilize and encourage poor quality images, poor ratios, and poor choice in taste (cats and food pictures and people flexing in gyms). But it DOES NOT matter - the consumer wants this, demands it, uses it, so it works. That's an entirely different problem than the photo/video quality issue. If you look at a platform like 500px, you'll see immense quality - but again, doesn't matter, >90% of people are incapable of creating photos like that. So they don't some crapware to share their food. More power to them.
    - pdog 13y ago
      > As someone who has been involved with photography since the days of 35mm film and someone who has developed their own B&W in a lab - Instagram (and Vine) are regressions of the art. What can we do to improve the default pictures taken with smartphone cameras? The picture you get with that tiny camera isn't very good, even now, though I think that Instagram is an improvement.
mrmaddog 13y ago
Since you brought it up, there are great things happening in the Ethernet Switching space, just nothing that makes it to the front page of a site like Hacker News. I'm an engineer at Arista Networks, where I get to work on some really impressive "hardcode" technologies: ridiculously scalable protocols, very distributed systems, really interesting uptime/redundancy requirements, and much more. However, let's not start idolizing the networking field so quickly. This in an industry with a lot of entrenched interests, which, like in all B2B businesses, leads to a lot of FUD being spread around and glacier-paced rates for adopting new technologies. There's plenty that I envy about the consumer app space. In any case, if you guys are interested in learning more about some of the hard technical problems being tackled in the networking space, I'd be happy to do a couple of writeups exploring the non-consumer world of tech. (And, if that stuff tickles your fancy, we're hiring!)
- sturadnidge 13y ago
  Curious to know what you think about the Cumulus release - if I'm not mistaken, you guys are also 'just' Linux?
atacrawl 13y ago
Look, I get it, you need to clone Vine to stay competitive, but it's not new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm. Why does it have to be? And besides, by adding video, Instagram just put its boot on the throat of Vine. I already deleted Vine from my phone -- I went from seldom using it to having absolutely no need to use it. Less Apps please. They added video capability while maintaining the exact same user flow to take a photo. That's how you add a feature. It's a huge win for users. (Edited to make more sense.)

psbp 13y ago

This is just a clever way to get video ads integrated into the facebook stream. Relevant: http://adage.com/abstract?article_id=242165 http://adage.com/abstract?article_id=242165

andrewhillman 13y ago
Not sure why people think this is about FB running ads. I highly doubt FB would consider pre-rolling an ad on a 15 second clip. Youtube is the king of pre-rolls... they probably have a min length requirement before they will insert a pre-roll. Ads don't make much sense on a 15 second clip.
- psbp 13y ago
  RTA, it's about having 15-second ads.
  - lleims 13y ago
    I agree with this. This is a clever way of soon rolling video ads on your Facebook timeline. Audio could be disabled by default and the experience would feel less intrusive. Systrom specifically said that videos will post natively to the timeline. -- Q: Will videos post natively, on FB Timeline? A: Yes. You’ll be able to see videos right in your timeline.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  I don't think people are talking about pre-rolls here, they're talking about FB using it to run video ads in your newsfeed.

onedev 13y ago

You don't think their stabilization technology is imaginative?

psbp 13y ago
How does this compare with Youtube Capture's stabilization? I haven't used either. *If this is any indication youtube's is pretty good, but not as seamless: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-stabilization-on-youtube.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-stabilizati... Though we haven't seen a video comparison yet.
- samstave 13y ago
  Or Luma?
phatbyte 13y ago
Video stabilization has been around for ages. I personally don't find it anything disruptive or imaginative. Even on the iphone there are lots of app for video stabilization.
atestu 13y ago
It's only available on iPhone 4S/5… they're probably just using the iOS SDK!
- josh2600 13y ago
  This x10. Shouting out about how awesome your tech is when it's someone else's tech that you didn't exclusively-license is lame.
  - onedev 13y ago
    It's completely proprietary tech developed by a team of image processing specialists on the Instagram team. It in no way uses the iOS SDK.

dopamean 13y ago

Where did they say it was new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm?

dannyr 13y ago
Kevin Systrom: "Cinema will change video forever"
- josh2600 13y ago
  I saw Kevin Systrom speak on a panel moderated by Kevin Rose where he said "Instagram is not a photo company, it's a communication company". While it might be a communication company someday, it very much is a photo/video company now and they should spout fewer pithy aphorisms and spend more time building kickass technology. IMHO.

badclient 13y ago

but it's not new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm It's called marketing.

dakrisht 13y ago

Just another recycled, cloned feature from an existing application. Consumers simply don't care about "hardcore technology" - Ethernet switching? That's like telling a consumer that Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet - they'll look at you and say "Facebook is the Internet." I couldn't agree more with the "less app please" statement - but we live in a very skewed reality these days. Apps like Vine take off in weeks from people posting the dumbest, worst, lowest quality videos of their cats and themselves eating food. Instagram destroyed photography by making an 8MP smartphone camera <1MP with a square polaroid-like frame and the worst destructive filters of all-time. It's just a vicious cycle of bullshit. When will it end? The state of technology, rather consumer technology, is indicative of the consumer - and unfortunately, the average consumer isn't very bright.

timmm 13y ago
I actually like adding filters to my photos, not sure if that makes me dumb or a hipster but it kinda just makes them look more surreal at times.
- dakrisht 13y ago
  It doesn't make you dumb or a hipster or anything like that. It's simply how you like your photos - and there's nothing wrong with that. As someone who has been involved with photography since the days of 35mm film and someone who has developed their own B&W in a lab - Instagram (and Vine) are regressions of the art. They utilize and encourage poor quality images, poor ratios, and poor choice in taste (cats and food pictures and people flexing in gyms). But it DOES NOT matter - the consumer wants this, demands it, uses it, so it works. That's an entirely different problem than the photo/video quality issue. If you look at a platform like 500px, you'll see immense quality - but again, doesn't matter, >90% of people are incapable of creating photos like that. So they don't some crapware to share their food. More power to them.
  - pdog 13y ago
    > As someone who has been involved with photography since the days of 35mm film and someone who has developed their own B&W in a lab - Instagram (and Vine) are regressions of the art. What can we do to improve the default pictures taken with smartphone cameras? The picture you get with that tiny camera isn't very good, even now, though I think that Instagram is an improvement.

mrmaddog 13y ago

Since you brought it up, there are great things happening in the Ethernet Switching space, just nothing that makes it to the front page of a site like Hacker News. I'm an engineer at Arista Networks, where I get to work on some really impressive "hardcode" technologies: ridiculously scalable protocols, very distributed systems, really interesting uptime/redundancy requirements, and much more. However, let's not start idolizing the networking field so quickly. This in an industry with a lot of entrenched interests, which, like in all B2B businesses, leads to a lot of FUD being spread around and glacier-paced rates for adopting new technologies. There's plenty that I envy about the consumer app space. In any case, if you guys are interested in learning more about some of the hard technical problems being tackled in the networking space, I'd be happy to do a couple of writeups exploring the non-consumer world of tech. (And, if that stuff tickles your fancy, we're hiring!)

sturadnidge 13y ago
Curious to know what you think about the Cumulus release - if I'm not mistaken, you guys are also 'just' Linux?

atacrawl 13y ago

Look, I get it, you need to clone Vine to stay competitive, but it's not new or a re-imagining of the video paradigm. Why does it have to be? And besides, by adding video, Instagram just put its boot on the throat of Vine. I already deleted Vine from my phone -- I went from seldom using it to having absolutely no need to use it. Less Apps please. They added video capability while maintaining the exact same user flow to take a photo. That's how you add a feature. It's a huge win for users. (Edited to make more sense.)