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Ads may come to Instagram

slate.com

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Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#41

Post by rogerchucker »

purplelobster wrote: post #13
kyllo wrote: post #9

Kind of a condescending article. Really, Instagram pulled an enormous bait-and-switch. Create a great application, give it away for free until you've built up a huge base of users, then sell the application and its user base to another company and let them figure out how to actually make money off it. Understandably users are going to be upset because they're being asked to either pay for or see ads with something th…

Users don't really have any right to be upset over not being able to use services completely for free. Is this what the world has come to? Start-ups make their service free initially until they've gotten enough users, then try to monetize and then the users hop on to the next free service. And repeat. Either user expectations have to change, or start-ups will have to realize that they need to start monetize right awa…

I'll repeat. "If you start free, stay free. If you start with $$$, then try to go to $$. That's just the way it will always work." Try not to get too philosophical about it. User expectations are set and managed by the service providers. If the user has a certain expectation, it is the provider's fault (in this case Instagram).

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#42

Post by anonymfus »

dm8 wrote: post #37
quarterto wrote: post #11

Either: Facebook have no imagination. Or: Slate (and the internet) has the wrong end of the stick. Scenario the first. So FB dropped a cool billion on a photo-sharing social network and app with a sizeable, vehemently dedicated and pretty damn vocal userbase. Now they want to make money out of it. Fine. "So guys, Instagram monetization. Hit me." "Um." "Um." "Ads?" "Perfect!" I (and I'm sure a large majority of Instag…

>> I (and I'm sure a large majority of Instagram users) am pretty much instantly put off by ads. Especially in-app or in-feed apps. Any ad space sold on my screen is pretty much money wasted. Why don't you like them? Aren't they better than spammy banners? Or even worse-- the interstitials where you have to watch ad for few seconds compulsorily! All the promoted content in feeds (like promoted tweets) has clearly mar…

Of course banners are better, it's easier to block them by software or by mind.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#44

Post by nwh »

kyllo wrote: post #9

Kind of a condescending article. Really, Instagram pulled an enormous bait-and-switch. Create a great application, give it away for free until you've built up a huge base of users, then sell the application and its user base to another company and let them figure out how to actually make money off it. Understandably users are going to be upset because they're being asked to either pay for or see ads with something th…

I suspect if you asked a lot of users what they thought about Instagram's income, they wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not sure that a lot of people even realise why they pay for mobile applications (they paid for the phone so why are they paying more now?), and just attribute it to corporate greed.

I asked the question of some of my peers recently, and their justification was that Instagram didn't new income, as it was providing fun. I'll leave you to figure out how that works.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#45

Post by dchuk »

rogerchucker wrote: post #40
goatforce5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's it a bait and switch? Should free things be provided to you forever? If something is being given to you for free, shouldn't you realize that at some point money has to enter the equation? “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”

If you start free, stay free. If you start with $$$, then try to go $$. That's just the way it will always work.

They are staying free, they're just adding ads. It's no different than Facebook. Facebook has been and always will be a free site.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#46

Post by asanwal »

aes256 wrote: post #39
jemka wrote: post #3

1. Facebook is a for profit company. 2. Facebook probably wants to seek a direct monetary ROI on Instagram. 3. Facebook may or may not have figured out that strategy. Either way, not revealing those details is an indication of nothing beyond standard business practice. 4. Some users don't like ads, which is evident by the popularity of ad blocking tools. 5. Some users don't mind ads, some even click on them, which is…

> 5. Some users don't mind ads, some even click on them, which is evident by the revenue ads generate. Don't underestimate people clicking ads for the wrong reasons (e.g. they don't realize it's an ad, the ad makes misleading or incorrect claims, the user is just using the ad as a convenient shortcut to a website when searching for it on Google, etc.) I'd guesstimate this to be the majority of ad clicks and revenue.

Sorry but this guesstimate is a bit absurd. If the majority of ad clicks were ineffective or for wrong reasons, Google's $231 billion market cap would be tough to justify.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#47

Post by kyllo »

rogerchucker wrote: post #41
purplelobster wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users don't really have any right to be upset over not being able to use services completely for free. Is this what the world has come to? Start-ups make their service free initially until they've gotten enough users, then try to monetize and then the users hop on to the next free service. And repeat. Either user expectations have to change, or start-ups will have to realize that they need to start monetize right awa…

I'll repeat. "If you start free, stay free. If you start with $$$, then try to go to $$. That's just the way it will always work." Try not to get too philosophical about it. User expectations are set and managed by the service providers. If the user has a certain expectation, it is the provider's fault (in this case Instagram).

Exactly, it's all about managing expectations. You can't blame users in the aggregate for being upset when you set their expectations very high and then try to bring them down.

Actually, to blame an aggregate group of people (especially your own customers) for anything is folly. Chances are it's not them, it's you.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#48

Post by hnriot »

kyllo wrote: post #29
goatforce5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's it a bait and switch? Should free things be provided to you forever? If something is being given to you for free, shouldn't you realize that at some point money has to enter the equation? “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”

Oh I am very much aware of this fact. But another fact is that if you give someone something for free for a while and then you start to charge for it (or add ads to it) they are going to be upset, regardless of whether they "should" be upset. No one is happy about the experience of having value subtracted.

But this is still not bait and switch.

You can use of the myriad if other apps, like Flickr which stores the images at a decent resolution (instead if the 612x612)

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#49

Post by 001sky »

asanwal wrote: post #46
aes256 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5. Some users don't mind ads, some even click on them, which is evident by the revenue ads generate. Don't underestimate people clicking ads for the wrong reasons (e.g. they don't realize it's an ad, the ad makes misleading or incorrect claims, the user is just using the ad as a convenient shortcut to a website when searching for it on Google, etc.) I'd guesstimate this to be the majority of ad clicks and revenue.

Sorry but this guesstimate is a bit absurd. If the majority of ad clicks were ineffective or for wrong reasons, Google's $231 billion market cap would be tough to justify.

These are not mutually exclusive concepts, just FYI.

Re: Ads may come to Instagram

#50

Post by catshirt »

001sky wrote: post #49
asanwal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but this guesstimate is a bit absurd. If the majority of ad clicks were ineffective or for wrong reasons, Google's $231 billion market cap would be tough to justify.

These are not mutually exclusive concepts, just FYI.

you're suggesting the majority of google's ad revenue is misclicks?
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