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Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

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Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#81

Post by rogerchucker »

davis_m wrote: post #35
rogerchucker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty damn presumptuous thing to say... have you seen any studies or conducted one yourself where people admitted to leaning towards user-experience benefits about online photo sharing at the expense of privacy? I agree with your point though that users have a responsibility to figure out the objective of the app in order to understand the context of its intended use.

I think Facebook is an excellent piece of evidence that users are generally concerned about UX over security. Just because you and I are are thinking about security, doesn't mean most people are. And I don't even feel like this is a horrible thing for Instagram to do. It is an app specifically for uploading and sharing photos.

There are concrete studies (search Acquisti) that shown Facebook users have a big disconnect between what they want as privacy and what they do. And that disconnect has , in more than one top journal papers, been attributed to a lack of total grasp of the privacy settings and its implications by the common public. So I think one should refrain from making bold claims like "users are generally concerned about UX over security" (I believe you meant privacy and not security).

I totally agree with the philosophy behind your claim that users see privacy as part of a utility function where sometimes the value of the experience trumps privacy controls and it also depends on the value one attaches to the information he/she is sharing. So from that perspective, especially given the publicly accepted norm that everything on instagram is public (like in Twitter), this "privacy calculus" will probably work out in favor of Instagram's decision here. And yes, it is not a horrible thing for them to be doing either.

But it does break the trust for those who are accustomed to the connotations of certain UI features (like "Done" button and progress bar).

Instagram will get away with this, but if somebody with a less trust level was engaging in such pre-"Done" uploading activity, there would be pushback. What I fear is that the co-founder by sharing this with the developers community will encourage this behavior in other startups/apps and this will then become an industry best practice even for the shady apps (just like it did for the address book).

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#82

Post by fromhet »

polynomial wrote: post #47
chollida1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the iPhone at least, it only saves photos if you post them. Ah, if that's the case, then this seems much better. I was under the assumption that photo's were uploaded after being taken. If the user has to explicitly say, "Upload this picture" and only then does the upload start, then this seems to be much better.

The Android version saves all the photos I've taken with Instagram locally. Of course I don't know whether there are copies of these images on their servers, not published to my public stream, as the app doesn't show anything like that.

It saves the local copy after you apply a filter, so at the same time it is uploaded but probarbly before the user is "finished" with the upload process (screen 2 after applying filter is to add a caption, and while that is happening the photo is uploaded).

But then again that is like writing erotic short stories in your twitter apps drafts and be outraged that they are saved online.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#83

Post by sophacles »

quanticle wrote: post #75
chollida1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this seems way offside. What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos. What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission? I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

Instagram is a photo sharing service. They've never hidden that aspect. The default user expectation is uploading and sharing. I don't see why immediately initiating the upload would be unexpected for the user.

Because, uploading before pressing the "save this publicly" button is counter-intuitive to most people. Much like if texts were sent before I pressed the send button -- until i press that button there is the option to change my mind, edit what i say, etc. This is the mental model most people will have, way more so when presented with a "publish" button (akin to a send mms button).

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#84

Post by skeletonjelly »

NathanKP wrote: post #53
simonw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine they start uploading when you click the greet "tick" button.

Exactly. All this outrage about photos being uploaded without permission is overblown, because tapping the green check button is just the same as clicking a submit button. Instagram just separates the upload process from the process for setting the photo's metadata, which is very intelligent and more efficient.

It isn't submit it's "upload". And it is only overblown outrage now that we know the facts right?

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#85

Post by skeletonjelly »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #67
avbor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On slide 89 it mentions that they delete the data if the user cancels it.

And of course they do. They respect user choice and privacy. Whilst you can be all tin-foil hat and think they are going to keep these "cancelled" photos, I would seriously doubt it.

People also doubted that Facebook retained deleted profiles a number of years ago. Is this an unhealthy opinion to form in an age of growing "cloud" data?

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#86

Post by skeletonjelly »

masklinn wrote: post #77
hk__2 wrote: post #36

Chrome does the same, when you right-clic on a file and select "Save as…", the download begin in a temporary file, and then when you select the emplacement where you want to put the new file, it moves the temporary file in it.

I don't know a browser which does not do that. They need to start the download to get the metadata (file name and type), and they'll do it if only because shitty servers may react very badly to the browser just stopping with a full socket buffer.

They don't need to start it to get the metadata. All that's sent is the content-disposition header with the suggested file name.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#87

Post by elithrar »

sophacles wrote: post #83
quanticle wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram is a photo sharing service. They've never hidden that aspect. The default user expectation is uploading and sharing. I don't see why immediately initiating the upload would be unexpected for the user.

Because, uploading before pressing the "save this publicly" button is counter-intuitive to most people. Much like if texts were sent before I pressed the send button -- until i press that button there is the option to change my mind, edit what i say, etc. This is the mental model most people will have, way more so when presented with a "publish" button (akin to a send mms button).

> Much like if texts were sent before I pressed the send button -- until i press that button there is the option to change my mind, edit what i say, et

Except that analogy doesn't fit. Other users cannot see, nor do you see on your account, the uploaded-but-not-explicitly-published photo. It only appears publicly when you choose for it to be.

A text message that was sent before you pressed the send button would have to be held at an intermediate (such as BBM servers or iMessage servers), and of course makes little sense due to the size of a text vs. the size of a photo.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#88

Post by tb »

ot wrote: post #73

Their motivation for speed is very well put: "mobile experiences fill gaps while we wait. no one wants to wait while they wait" Awesome quote

I absolutely agree. I now have an instinctive reaction to reach for my pocket whenever I'm feeling the slightest bit impatient, and I have caught myself on a couple of occasions reaching for my pocket when I already have my phone out, because I'm waiting for a page to load in the mobile browser.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#89

Post by SCdF »

fromhet wrote: post #82
polynomial wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Android version saves all the photos I've taken with Instagram locally. Of course I don't know whether there are copies of these images on their servers, not published to my public stream, as the app doesn't show anything like that.

It saves the local copy after you apply a filter, so at the same time it is uploaded but probarbly before the user is "finished" with the upload process (screen 2 after applying filter is to add a caption, and while that is happening the photo is uploaded). But then again that is like writing erotic short stories in your twitter apps drafts and be outraged that they are saved online.

"writing erotic short stories in your twitter"

OT: If there isn't a novelty twitter account for this I'm disappointed.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#90

Post by pjscott »

skeletonjelly wrote: post #3

So Instagram has photos I don't click "upload" on. Well that's nice to know. Edit: So I tried to use a proxy on my phone but it looks like Instragram on Android doesn't honour the wireless proxy server. Anyone else want to do some digging?

The easy technical workaround would be to pre-send the photos encrypted with a random key, and only send the key after you explicitly click "upload". At least that way you could verify with a proxy that they were, in fact, not seeing photos you haven't sent them the keys for.
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