Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 117 posts

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#71

Post by drb91 »

40acres wrote: post #20

I'm not sure that Facebook using Instagram as a way to funnel people back to Facebook is a great strategy. Companies need to be willing to cannibalize themselves or someone will do it for them. I don't know if Zuck had the foresight at the time, but Instagram has obviously been an amazing hedge against apps like Snapchat. People like Instagram and Snapchat partly because they are less formal than Facebook, most users…

> I'm not sure that Facebook using Instagram as a way to funnel people back to Facebook is a great strategy

Nit, this strategy seems to have failed—alternatively they’re just changing instagram to be more like facebook (ads, no timeline control, messaging and stories).

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#72

Post by riazrizvi »

princekolt wrote: post #5

Side note: For anyone interested, the third picture down[1] in the article is a fairly high resolution photo of a computer monitor where you can see Xcode and some very neat Objective-C code. [1]: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/09/25/business/25INSTAG...

You mean how the code is indented after the if() { ?? What’s neat about it?

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#73

Post by zamber »

tchalla wrote: post #52
40acres wrote: post #20

I'm not sure that Facebook using Instagram as a way to funnel people back to Facebook is a great strategy. Companies need to be willing to cannibalize themselves or someone will do it for them. I don't know if Zuck had the foresight at the time, but Instagram has obviously been an amazing hedge against apps like Snapchat. People like Instagram and Snapchat partly because they are less formal than Facebook, most users…

> I don't know if Zuck had the foresight at the time, but Instagram has obviously been an amazing hedge against apps like Snapchat. I wish all of us have the "foresight" to give away a "free" data-security VPN app to "protect" browsing and keep the user "safe". You can then surreptitiously use the traffic to for competitor intelligence and buy them off [0]. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-socia…

When they bought Onavo I didin't see that coming. Thought they wanted to assimilate it with the brand in some way. Thanks for the insight.

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#74

Post by amerine »

Agathos wrote: post #69

Second-to-last paragraph really makes the article: > And their departure, despite its suddenness, does require some perspective. Both Instagram founders stayed on for six years after being acquired — much longer than entrepreneurs usually do after selling their company and long after they had received their full payout in stock. Dog Bites Man After Unusually Long Delay

A dog that waits that long to bite is probably starting to get abused in some fashion.

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#76

Post by diminoten »

gotwilly wrote: post #2

Doesn't "Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly." and "Perhaps. Eventually." mean essentially the same thing?

Yeah, the whole article felt like it hinged on the difference between those two statements, but I was struck by how similar they actually were.

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#77

Post by j79 »

randycupertino wrote: post #53
da02 wrote: post #35

I'm not on FB. I also haven't used Instagram for a while. How has Instagram changed in the last few years?

More ads, more "influencers" doing it professionally, more people sharing text-based images and motivational quotes and memes, older crowd base of users, timeline now filtered by algorithm and not sequentially.

> timeline now filtered by algorithm and not sequentially

Yep. It annoyed me to no end to learn that I had missed a bunch of images posted by a friend because they were never surfaced to me. It turns out my rampant liking (it's super easy with the double-tapping) of someone who burst-post(s) suddenly made me seem like I was a "fan" of theirs. In reality, I just double-tap everything.

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#78

Post by eksemplar »

40acres wrote: post #20

I'm not sure that Facebook using Instagram as a way to funnel people back to Facebook is a great strategy. Companies need to be willing to cannibalize themselves or someone will do it for them. I don't know if Zuck had the foresight at the time, but Instagram has obviously been an amazing hedge against apps like Snapchat. People like Instagram and Snapchat partly because they are less formal than Facebook, most users…

I saw some usage data in a quartz article, that I can’t find, earlier this week. Facebook was the most popular social media platform across teenagers, millennials, generation x and baby boomers.

The real interesting data was in teenagers though, their most popular platform is Snapchat, but none of the platforms had managed to make more than 40% of teenagers create an account with them.

I think this is interesting because it shows that Facebook isn’t really sucking that much worse than Instagram and that Instagram isn’t going to save Facebook on its own.

From a more anecdotal perspective, I think the integration was smart. I’m not very active on social media, but I do use Facebook to arrange events with my friends that live in multiple cities. Because I see people sharing Instagram posts on Facebook through the integration, I’ve considered creating an account. Of course I’ve also considered leaving the platform because Facebook keeps doing the wrong thing.

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#79

Post by landryraccoon »

naravara wrote: post #19
Apocryphon wrote: post #18

"Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Instagram could have hit one billion users if it had not been bought by Facebook. Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly. [...] Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, had a slightly different answer to that question. Perhaps. Eventually. We will never know who was right." What if, Instagram had merged with Snapchat instead?

Facebook would have leveraged its user base and clout to smother them in the crib. This is why they ought to be one of the first targets for anti-trust regulation. Any company that can leverage its market size to kill competition, irrespective of the quality of their product, needs to be taken down a peg. Google and Amazon should be close behind. And Apple needs to be put on notice. It's not even that those 3 compani…

If Facebook can't smother just Snapchat alone, why would they be able to smother Snapchat and Instagram together?

Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed

#80

Post by starpilot »

Agathos wrote: post #69

Second-to-last paragraph really makes the article: > And their departure, despite its suddenness, does require some perspective. Both Instagram founders stayed on for six years after being acquired — much longer than entrepreneurs usually do after selling their company and long after they had received their full payout in stock. Dog Bites Man After Unusually Long Delay

Man Bites Dog
Post reply on HN