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Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

nytimes.com

71–80 of 145 posts

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#71
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh that's what they've done. The article is about Instagram becoming like Facebook in the sense that this is a massive property on the scale of the core Facebook product. 700 million users vs Facebook's 2 billion.

Facebook has definitely not left it as the "same old Instagram". They've changed the home feed algorithm to basically the same as the Facebook home feed algorithm, and there's been a lot of content creators negatively impacted by it (I know this because of the industry my wife works in, which is having major issues now, where engagement has basically halved among anybody except the top maybe 5% of content creators).

Organising content by what is relevant or interesting to you as an individual is hardly specific to Facebook or Instagram. Many companies are doing something the same thing e.g. Pinterest, Netflix, YouTube.

Even companies like banks are using individual Next Best Action models to determine what marketing decision is right specifically for you rather than something generic to your demographic.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that only changes the "gaming industry" to the "entertainment industry". The overall point remains.

I don't understand what that "overall" point is anymore. I thought the point was "whether the whole mobile game industry makes more money by advertising, or whether those games that advertise just make more money at the expense of others."

The claim made above was "Ads over time extract profit margins from all other industries."

The mobile gaming industry was used as an example, but even if they grow their pie by reducing some other industry's, the claim is still true.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#73
post #68
post #15

It's disappointing that tech journalists don't go a bit harder at the founders when writing pieces like these. Sure, it's interesting to find out about Instagram's internal processes and their projections, but Facebook is becoming increasingly regarded as being the main contributor to a new kind of social malaise. Therefore, if Instagram is aspiring to that level of adoption, how can questions like this not be put to…

> ask some hard questions about what social value they're actually creating What does this mean exactly? Facebook is providing tremendous value to me personally as a way of keeping in touch with family and friends but I guess you're asking from a higher perspective.

That is probably the best aspect of facebook, and what they should have stuck with IMO. The "let's be the place where people can see only news & opinions that they agree with" is more questionable.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#74
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not other games, but surely he spends the money somewhere. Hence the claim that ads extract profit margins from all other industries.

Do you, really? For most of the people I know, our entertainment budget is fairly flexible. If I'd spend £100 on something and if I wanted it, I'm probably not going to spend £100 on my second choice thing. In fact, I may not spend anything at all and just choose to spend my time on things I've already spent money on like going out to skate or something. Mostly the cash budget is substantially higher than the time bu…

This is not restricted to the entertainment budget, the claim was that ads extract from all other industries. Unless you're burning the £100 you're not spending, that's still true.

If ads help with allocation closer to people's real preferences, they're a good thing.

Maybe, but is there any evidence that they actually do?

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#75
post #46

I've been on Instagram for a year, and I still don't get it. I've gotten to a 1000 followers by regularly adding photos from my travels. I get a few hundred likes per photo and a couple of dozen of generic comments.And the occasional DM. Is this it ? Even by the standards of social media, it feels very superificial to me. Facebook 10 years ago was much more exciting.

Everyone uses social media differently I guess, but in my case I almost exclusively follow and am followed by people who I know. I intentionally don't tag my posts. I love it this way. I get to see what my friends are up to, and share bits of my life with them as well. I am not happy with the non linear ordering change as it seems to prefer showing me things I've already seen above stuff I haven't, but even so Instagram is much more conducive to sharing photos and viewing them than FB ever was.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#76
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you, really? For most of the people I know, our entertainment budget is fairly flexible. If I'd spend £100 on something and if I wanted it, I'm probably not going to spend £100 on my second choice thing. In fact, I may not spend anything at all and just choose to spend my time on things I've already spent money on like going out to skate or something. Mostly the cash budget is substantially higher than the time bu…

This is not restricted to the entertainment budget, the claim was that ads extract from all other industries. Unless you're burning the £100 you're not spending, that's still true. If ads help with allocation closer to people's real preferences, they're a good thing. Maybe, but is there any evidence that they actually do?

Ah. Clearly I misunderstood. If you take everything (including the savings account industry) then yes, advertisements just lead to reallocation. But that's just what money is for: it's to allocate to things you want. If that's the claim, then I'm going to bow out of this discussion because I think it's unproductive since the purpose of practically all things one does is the allocation of resources.

Since it's not a distinguishing feature of advertisements, I think it's a pointless discussion.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#77
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not other games, but surely he spends the money somewhere. Hence the claim that ads extract profit margins from all other industries.

Do you, really? For most of the people I know, our entertainment budget is fairly flexible. If I'd spend £100 on something and if I wanted it, I'm probably not going to spend £100 on my second choice thing. In fact, I may not spend anything at all and just choose to spend my time on things I've already spent money on like going out to skate or something. Mostly the cash budget is substantially higher than the time bu…

> If ads help with allocation closer to people's real preferences, they're a good thing.

Except that's not what ads are about. Ads are about selling stuff. People smoked cigarettes to be sexy, and then got cancer. Maybe they did get some extra sex, but I doubt it.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Email or text messages are no longer cool?

It has nothing to do with what is cool or not. It's about enabling a different type of relationship where you are sharing your life with people you don't necessarily want to have a constant conversation with.

[deleted]

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#79

> More precisely, it feels the way Facebook did from 2009 to 2012, when it silently crossed over from one of those tech things that some people sometimes did to one of those tech things that everyone you know does every day. Ubiquity is an interesting thought - there are very few apps that an average person uses on a daily basis that _aren't_ owned by Facebook. Four of the most used apps (Facebook, Messenger, Instagr…

> What happens when Facebook does similar and Mark Zuckerberg controls nearly every waking moment of most Americans? Who is the Apple to the United States v. Facebook monopoly?

That's called jumping the shark. In this context, the point in time where people get so concerned about a powerful company, that a form of outlandish and irrational fear starts to set in. See: IBM 1970s, early 1980s; Microsoft late 1990s; Google today; Amazon soon; Facebook tomorrow. In most historical instances of monopoly or near monopoly, by the time the fear got really extreme, the company's power was already near a peak or in decline.

I wish I could call it a mere exaggeration, the notion of Zuckerberg 'controlling nearly every waking moment for Americans' - but it's far beyond that.

Re: Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

#80
post #46

I've been on Instagram for a year, and I still don't get it. I've gotten to a 1000 followers by regularly adding photos from my travels. I get a few hundred likes per photo and a couple of dozen of generic comments.And the occasional DM. Is this it ? Even by the standards of social media, it feels very superificial to me. Facebook 10 years ago was much more exciting.

I've tried and failed (9.9x out of 10) to use the site for discovery...of anything interesting. For a site with so much content (media), it seems so void of content (significance, meaning).
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