7 ms·
Introducing Instagram Direct
- bluetidepro 13y agoI'm very interested to see how this goes against SnapChat. I think it could either ruin SnapChat for good, or not make any impact at all because of the fanbase loyalty to SnapChat. It will be interesting to see, that's for sure. Also, I haven't seen a clear explanation on their implementation when you try to "direct" someone that has not updated their app (don't have the Direct feature) yet. Does it warn you, queue the Direct for when they finally do update, doesn't let you use the feature with them at all, or what? AFTER UPDATING: It looks like you guys are right, it allows you to send Direct to people who have not updated, so I imagine it just queue's it for them. Also, you cannot set expiration timers, and if you do a group message everyone in the group can see who is in the group (both unlike SnapChat). So, it looks like this will not probably not harm SnapChat at all.
- rajbala 13y agoI don't think this will impact SnapChat at all. I think people use SnapChat because it's a silo disconnected from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- rickyc091 13y agoAgreed, if anything, this seems to "compete" more with Kik Messaging.
- mlyang 13y agoI think this will pretty substantively impact Snapchat's moderate to less prolific users. Most people don't NEED their pictures to self-destruct, they weren't that embarrassing in the first place. This however, allows for more fun engagement after the initial picture sending and once users get a feel for that, people would opt for this I believe.
- thefallsman 13y agoI agree, I think it will, at least somewhat, impact snapchat because the products are similar. I'm sure that was the aim here, to create a product that took inspiration from snapchat. Given that it's one of the most popular apps out there with an insane amount of users, and we know that facebook already tried to buy it. I'm sure they didn't want to copy it outright, but if they can integrate some of it's features into their existing products, they may be able to steal some users.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fro 13y agoJust updated, and I was able to send posts to users without the update. I believe it queues messages for when they update.
- salient 13y agoI think it will fail, hard - just like Facebook Poke did. And that was when Snapchat was very, very early. Now it has a ton of momentum behind it, and this is hopeless.
- GrinningFool 13y agoI think this is aimed more at BBM and Kik than SnapChat.
- ojbyrne 13y agoHipsters drive AMC Pacers these days? How not surprising: http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658533_1658042,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1...
- kayoone 13y agowanted to say the same thing. Great product and good marketing and all, but that video is so dripping of hipsterismn, they even have hipster cars in there.
- spiek 13y agoWhat is "hipsterism"?
- heyitsnick 13y agoI guess you're being purposefully obtuse? Hipster: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster Ism: highly active and well-understood suffix that means, among other things: "manner of action or behavior characteristic of a (specified) person or thing" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-ism http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-ism
- obilgic 13y agoTwitter DM vs Instagram Direct...
- uptown 13y agovs MMS
- southpawgirl 13y agovs email attachment
- bentcorner 13y agoI'm guessing you're being facetious, but MMS (or whatever app-of-the-month it is) beats email by allowing you to view content inline and having better infrastructure (lower overhead for communication, richer data [so-and-so is typing]). In my anecdotal experience apps beat out MMS because of carrier compatibility and poor service.
- witek 13y agoand cost (at least in Europe)
- WA 13y agovs WhatsApp
- obilgic 13y agovs Path
- smoorman1024 13y agoVersus Photostream!!!!! This is almost identical to Photostream which really is an under-appreciated iPhone product.
- antihero 13y ago
- kevando 13y agoI think snapchat's timeout feature is a novelty that attracted users, but people ultimately just want to send private messages to their friends. Not everything needs to be broadcasted, and that's part of the OG instagram userbase - people that wanted an alternative to the facebook feed. What's wrong with texting though? My friends and I have been texting and group texting images and short video for years. Why do people like having an app for this?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- emhart 13y agoImage editing within the same application that sends the message is a real benefit vs. just sms-ing an image.
- leokun 13y agoNot having to manage and deal with all the images people send you all the time is not a novelty. Smartphones all assume that every picture you have on your phone is a prize that you want to save forever. Snapchat gives people a way to send pictures that just avoid all that.
- kevando 13y agoSee that's what I'm saying. Someone texts you a photo, it doesn't go into your photo list. It stays in your text convo. I'm all for data management and removing clutter, but I can think of 500 items to clear out before I consider private photo messages from my closest friends.
- jkkorn 13y agoWhere is Twitter with Vine Direct?
- ts330 13y agoit's coming. soon.
- presty 13y agothe blog's hosted on tumblr? hm..
- bluetidepro 13y agoWhat's odd about that? Tons of companies use Tumblr for their official blogs?
- salient 13y agoThe alternative was a Facebook Page, probably, so...
- southpawgirl 13y ago"I am going to write an app that allows the user to send pictures to their contacts!" I guess one must have a fair bit of userbase karma + mystique to successfully reinvent the wheel, to make a funnier-to-use wheel that actually gets used.
- personlurking 13y agoSlightly related. I don't really think we need social networks as they're now understood. About 10 years ago when MSN Messenger was popular, I had the idea of having an interactive contact list for one's cell phone. One where I could see that my friend is "in the shower, out in 10" or where I could send a picture to a contact, etc.
- cwe 13y agoEveryone is comparing this to Snapchat or Twitter, but what about FB Messenger? Competing with another Facebook entity, but I guess FB wins either way now?
- fro 13y agoThe best thing about this update might be that we finally get pull-to-refresh on the home feed.
- state 13y agoDoes anyone use the shared photostreams in iOS 7?
- ddoolin 13y agoI do. Quite often, actually. Seriously the best way to share albums if both parties are on iOS. The only downside is it can definitely take up space as the device stores a copy of each image from each stream.
- smoorman1024 13y agoPhotostream is really the end game for what sharing photos should be. You serve it on space that you rent privately from Apple. You have comments, likes, and filters. You can post photos of any size. Your social network is not being analyzed because Apple is selling you the space (iCloud) and the device (iPhone).
- smoorman1024 13y agoReasons to continue using Snapchat. 1. They are the brand that reinvented the sharing model. They are more likely to stick to their core values 2. Facebook/Instagram can use the information about who you send to to expand their already vast profile of you. 3. Based on Snapchats word, your images are truly deleted from their servers after they've been viewed. That said, I'll be testing out Instagram direct to see if it is truly a superior product but I imagine if they think of something good Snapchat will copy it and I will go back to my brand du jour.
- terhechte 13y agoDoes anybody know if they're planning on making this available via their third party API? I've checked the current API docs [1] as well as the Google Group [2] and the StackOverflow Posts [3]. There's nothing mentioning it yet. This would be an awesome feature to have available in third party apps, so that one could have it in other chat clients apart from the official iPhone app. Adium is one example, but there're probably even better solutions. After all, one of the most annoying things about WhatsApp is that I have to use my phone to answer messages or read messages. It just feels stupid to tap away on a small screen to send a digital message while I have a 27" screen and a full keyboard right in front of me. That is something where iMessage and Facebook messages are way better. Also, there were, for quite some time, third party Instagram messaging solutions [4], and I'm really happy that they're finally implementing this straight into Instagram. Beforehand, you'd see people having discussions that were bordering on being private by continuously posting comments to an image. This happened all the time. Now these discussions can move into private space. [1] http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/ http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/ [2] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/instagram-api-developers https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/instagram-api-develo... [3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/instagram/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/instagram/ [4] http://instamessage.net/ http://instamessage.net/
- gjulianm 13y agoI'm pretty sure they won't make it available. They still don't allow uploading images to their service using an API, so I doubt they will allow to send messages. After the Twitter example, APIs are not attractive to these kind of startups. If you give full capabilities to 3rd party developers, they're going to create clients for other systems and the startup will lose control over its content and how it's shown to users (ads).
- constantinum 13y agodid any one notice this "Instagram for Android version 5.0 is available today on Google Play." Android 5.0 ??
- drcube 13y ago"Instagram for Android" is the name of the app, the version is now 5.0.
- mlyang 13y agoThis will have a huge impact on Snapchat, IMO. Instagram Direct allows you to keep a conversation going with close friends, which is much more engaging and fun. Snapchat does not allow for that. One of the reasons that I'm not as prolific on Snapchat is that I just can't know what the hell I'm going to take a picture of next in response to someone's Snapchat. This addresses that issue by allowing just one picture to be the instigator for a conversation. Obviously loyal Snapchat fans will still stay there but I think the less prolific Snapchatters will opt to send a picture this way rather than thru Snapchat.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- saltyknuckles 13y agoqueue the mandatory hipster video ...
- mikelbring 13y agoHad to double check to make sure I wasn't on The Onion.
- techaddict009 13y agoWill this create an impact on WhatsApp ?
- arsemouflon 13y agoThanks but no thanks. I'll just keep tweeting those pics of my arse.
- elwell 13y agoso if facebook can't buy snapchat for 3 billion they'll just make their own
- skeletonjelly 13y agoI suppose they already have the userbase. And it's not like there's much effort in copying a simple flow like Snapchat has. I'm pretty sure they (SC) have a patent on an app that goes straight to camera, amongst others though. Crazy.
- halcyondaze 13y agoIntroducing Nothing New. All they did was copy half of Snapchat's functionality and add the instagram ability to "edit" pictures. I don't get the point of all of this stuff sometimes. Is this what super smart and savvy people are working on in tech? Another way to send pictures to friends that isn't text, fb messenger, snapchat, kik, whatsapp, etc? Edit: I am really wondering if I'm missing something here with my above post, not just trying to be a dick for no reason.
- kika 13y agoPeople are doing this too. It looks dumb, but inside there're lots of interesting technical challenges. Some of the awe inspiring breakthroughs are often extremely boring technically. I started my career in the computational chemistry and was looking over the shoulder of the guys doing some really bleeding etch research on organic compounds simulation. Oh, man, do you know how boring it is for a programmer? You're looking at the handwritten prototype of the research paper, filled with quantum physics formulae and encode all this greek language into FORTRAN-IV. Then you run it for a week and either go collecting Nobel prize or finding bugs in your "program".
- neakor 13y agoCompletely agree. They are not doing anything even remotely innovative. Added direct messaging means nothing when the simple direct messaging channel has already evolved beyond just a picture/video. A techchrunch article said they are like Apple, not doing it first, but doing it the best. That's complete BS as well. It doesn't look or feel any different or better than FB messenger, iMessage, whatsapp, snapchat or any other messaging apps for that matter.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- cenhyperion 13y agoInstagram's beauty was its simplicity. You took photos, edited them, and shared them with friends. Post-facebook acquire they've introduced "features" that add very little to the service, copy competitors, and degrade the overall experience of Instagram.
- brianbreslin 13y agoActually this might have a minor impact on kik. Lots of Instagram users use kik to communicate, so this messaging tool could affect them more than snapchat. Snapchat still has the decaying images feature as it's main selling point,
- ahassan 13y agoSo it's kinda like Snapchat, except your images can be viewed forever?