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Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

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Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#281

Post by dperfect »

jedberg wrote: post #261
Alex3917 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-dr... tl;dr — Every successful social startup should bend, but not completely violate, one or more social taboos, e.g. one of the 7 deadly sins. Edit: When designing www.fwdeveryone.com, we purposely incorporated Pav's theory by building the platform around the taboo of getting involved in other people's relationships, in this case by letting people read (and…

> Spotify allows consumers to binge on music for a flat fee, however it is crucial to note that the musicians in this case significantly lose out on revenue. As a side note, it amuses me to see this repeated so often, given that it's not true. If you do the math, Spotify pays about the same as a radio play. You just have to remember that each radio play goes out to a few hundred thousand to a few million people each…

> Spotify knows exactly how many people listened to a song, and pay accordingly.

From what I understand, they actually pay based on how many times a song is played, which is not the same as how many people listened to it. If I only listen to an unpopular artist, but I don't listen as often as other people listen to popular artists (lower play count, even though it's still my favorite artist), nearly all of my subscription fee goes to the popular artists.

In the old days of purchasing music, it didn't matter how many times a person played the disc/track - it cost the same. You might argue that each play represents the marginal utility to the listener (and should thus be the basis for compensation), but I'm not sure that's entirely true.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#282

Post by fullshark »

sdf43543t345 wrote: post #266
fullshark wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess people pirating music is about greed, then being content with spotify instead because it's easier is about sloth.

re Piracy, its Pride -- for the technical challenge of getting something gratis. the fact it cost money ('greed') doesn't factor into it. Proud of the ability to acquire at no cost to the individual.

A lot of people were/are just cheap

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#284

Post by flamtap »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #279
flamtap wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was targeted by an ad for those Gravity Blankets (as I'm sure many others were). I bought one as a gift for my SO. The whole time I was looking at the Gravity Blanket website, I was thinking to myself "dammit, they got me." What I was even more impressed by is that after I bought one, I never saw another Gravity Blanket ad again.

How do you like it? I’m really curious about them!

I don't use it, but I do think it's pretty cool. It's small, as a 6'1 male I would say it's just big enough.

My girlfriend uses it when she's having troubles sleeping, she says that it really does put her to sleep quite well.

However, she says that there is a bit of adjustment, when you wake in the night or in the morning, there is a slight moment of panic when you don't have your strength back and are in a sleepy haze, because you have a bit of trouble moving around. But you get used to that.

When you receive it, you have to tie the weighted insert down with cloth ties inside the washable cover. I wish there were more of these on the inside though, the weighted part of the blanket can get too out-of place for my liking, and I also don't trust the ties to hold up for very long if you're not careful moving it. It definitely takes two hands and a good grip to get the blanket on top of you.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#285

Post by misiti3780 »

csomar wrote: post #60

I remember the outrage when Zuckerberg bought Insta for $1bn. The Internet was filled with bubble-theorist. Say what you want about Zuckerberg but the guy was well ahead of his time and could see how things would evolve and what tick with people brains.

or he just got very lucky. it only seems like he was "ahead of his time" because the story worked out - when you look at other acquisitions like say Oculus or Parse, I would argue it seems quite the opposite.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#286

Post by coldtea »

PerfectElement wrote: post #222
coldtea wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertising is a very legitimate way of making money Yes, just not a way to make something that improves our lives. Or even if you manage to make something that improves our lives, advertising is an incentive to pervert it and hold it back (e.g. you create a social network so people from all over the world can meet, then ads make you cripple it, force feed BS to them, milk them with spam, exploit their private data…

I was able to build a legitimate business that improves people's lives. In order to make my product discoverable, I had to spend some money on advertising (not on Facebook in particular). There was no other reliable way to reach my target audience. I have also bought many products from other businesses that have made my life better. In most instances, I have only become aware of these products because these businesse…

>I have also bought many products from other businesses that have made my life better. In most instances, I have only become aware of these products because these businesses have spent money on ad campaigns.

That could have been a valid argument in 1970.

Today we have the internet. Instead of advertising it's not perfectly possible and easy to have other means of discoverability:

a) professional product reviews - a review site visit or Google search away

b) actual user reviews -- an aggregator site or Google search away

c) the product makers marketing material on their own website

d) blogs from people using the product

e) forums with people exchanging advice/complaints about the product

f) videos of people unboxing, using, showcasing, etc the product

g) the specs of the product, product manual, photos, etc online

h) online communities around a product category

i) for digital products, one could also try a trial/time limited/shortened /watermarked version of them

j) for products we encounter physically on some shop's shelves and want to know more about them, a quick Google search or QR Code can take us to the product page (and/or all of the above)

Unlike advertisement, none of these give an unfair lead to the maker than can spend more campaign money.

What's best, most of these add informational value (like scores, real world complaints, professional reviewing, etc) that ads, by definition, don't have.

We literally have more ways than ever to discover products, and to find the best products. Advertising is just random producers (random quality wise: just the company with the bigger pockets) shouting to make their wares stand out.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#287

Post by coldtea »

J5892 wrote: post #194
coldtea wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertising is a very legitimate way of making money Yes, just not a way to make something that improves our lives. Or even if you manage to make something that improves our lives, advertising is an incentive to pervert it and hold it back (e.g. you create a social network so people from all over the world can meet, then ads make you cripple it, force feed BS to them, milk them with spam, exploit their private data…

How would you monetize it without ads? Instagram would have died an early death if you had to pay for it, and hiding certain features behind a pay wall would alienate 90% of the users.

>Instagram would have died an early death if you had to pay for it

That would be a bonus.

>hiding certain features behind a pay wall would alienate 90% of the users

Only before they have conditioned differently from an industry that has been legally allowed to trade private information for ad money.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#289

Post by spyspy »

murukesh_s wrote: post #107
code_duck wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram is basically Twitter where you have to post a photo. I agree that Instagram could not have grown to this size without being part of Facebook.

I think it could have been the other way around. Media and folks could have compared the growth of Instagram, which would have been a competing product with Facebook, and it could have given good mileage to Instagram, especially after the privacy fiasco and hate towards Facebook, Instagram could have been positioned as a Facebook replacement and there by shooting up it's value further.

The irony is that Instagram _still is_ thought of as a Facebook replacement. I saw several people in the past few months say something like "Hey fb sucks I'm deleting my profile you can hit me up by text, twitter, instagram, etc..."

This acquisition was genius on Zuckerberg's part.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#290

Post by soared »

DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #265
soared wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tons of negatives for society Can you expand on this? I also can't really parse what your second paragraph is trying to say. How do businesses that rely on ads undermine organic product discovery, and what conflict of interests could they have?

In brief: 1. Products reliant on advertising for revenue are incentivized to increase the amount of ads shown (per user and in total). This leads to product strategy which prioritizes growth and engagement above all. The line between "highly engaging" and "addictive" products becomes very thin, arguably disappearing entirely. 2. In order to provide highly targeted ads, companies must necessarily collect, store and or…

1. All products are reliant on advertising. full stop. But even then, they are not incentivized to increase the total amount of ads per user, that would be inefficient. They'd prefer better targeted ads over more ads (point 2).

2. Source? Outside of a few edge cases (china) I don't think this is a real concern. The same can happen with financial (or any) data, but I don't see people saying the data is the problem. Rather its the processes around that data that need fixing.

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