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Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

bloomberg.com

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

#221

Post by xkjkls »

Rjevski wrote: post #206
cm2012 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because of the amazing data Facebook and Instagram have to create anonymous targeting audiences with. Source: I spend millions on FB and IG ads per month.

Is your product that bad that you have to spend millions on ads just to get people interested in it? If I had to pay millions to shove my product in people’a faces because that’s the only way to get them to use it, I would reconsider whether my product should even exist.

Does Coca-Cola suck? They spend billions a year on advertising.

Demand for different products is generated very differently depending on the product. Some things travel by word of mouth, some things don't.

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

#222

Post by PerfectElement »

coldtea wrote: post #170
onetimemanytime wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is a very legitimate way of making money, lots of it. Now tracking people all over the web and other shady things, are a different story.

> 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 businesses have spent money on ad campaigns.

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

#223

Post by CodeCube »

xkjkls wrote: post #144
tomnipotent wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook replacement Instagram has always been supplementary to Facebook, it was never a candidate to replace it.

Yeah, I think given their UI/model it is pretty difficult to have any long form discussion on Instagram. The "news" part of the newsfeed as always been FB's killer app. Or at least that and event planning, though I think it's not impossible for Instagram to develop a product around that.

I keep hearing (anecdotally, of course), that people are starting to prefer Instagram because long form discussions are more difficult there. They seem to be seeking an escape from the news.

Fair point about the event planning ... if FB were to cross-launch the sane event planning DB on instagram and whatsapp, I suspect that would be pretty much a killer app.

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

#224

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fullshark wrote: post #208
css wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think I agree with the premise of this article, these examples seriously undermine the argument. WhatApp because of greed? Spotify because of gluttony? Spell check because of sloth? This seems like an awfully long stretch.

Every single technology you can argue is about sloth

I like to think fitness trackers and apps actually help people become more active, by gamifying the chore of moving without a purpose.

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

#225

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fullshark wrote: post #211
agumonkey wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could stretch spotify into musical pleasure greed .. although .. that would be stretching it

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

^ Very true; piracy became huge because it was free (greed) and easy (sloth), but streaming services like Spotify and Netflix changed those dynamics; it made it easier and safer (sloth), at the expense of making it cost some money, but still not as much as taking a gamble on e.g. buying a CD would.

Of course, it came at the expense of artists, who aren't making as much off of Spotify as they did off of album sales. Well, not the top X artists anyway, I like to think that the artists that used to be in the long tail are now doing pretty well for themselves. Relatively.

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

#226

Post by xkjkls »

thanatropism wrote: post #188
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.

To be fair, the whole thing could still prove to be the mother of all bubbles. For one: we still don't really really understand network effects. There's huge value to being Facebook (you're forced to be there because all your friends are there and most nowhere else), but people also switch platforms for reasons that are not excellently understood. And when I say bubble I don't mean this or that company -- Silly Valle…

It also depends on your investment timeline here. Facebook and other social media properties have historically traded at super low multiples compared to other companies with similar growth/profits. Facebook is trading at 15x it's projected 2020 earnings. That's extraordinarily low compared to any other tech giant. I'd say the risks of one-day being usurped are already substantially factored in.

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

#227

Post by sorenjan »

breischl wrote: post #204
txcwpalpha wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand, the fact that the pictures are im perfect quality pretty much is the whole point. The inability to really zoom in, all of the filters that adjust the hue/sharpness, etc are all things that help you hide away imperfections in your photo and draw attention to the broader gist of "look at what I'm eating/where I'm traveling/what I'm doing/how pretty I am!" The point of Instagram isn't to be able to see the wr…

Ah, that explains why they won't allow you to post photos from their website. I do some serious-amateur and (when I'm lucky) semi-pro quality photography using a "real camera". I was going to post some of them on Instagram, but discovered that I can't do it except maybe via the phone app. But there's no way I'm shuttling photos from my desktop to my phone so that I can upload them to Instagram.

There is an Instagram app available on the Windows store for some reason. You'd think it would make sense to build a better web client instead, but there you go.

Apparently you can post from the browser if you change your user agent and pretend to be using a mobile browser, so it's specifically desktop browsers that they don't want you to use.

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

#228

Post by chemochemo »

throwaway427 wrote: post #138
gojomo wrote: post #58

Fun to review how many HN commenters pooh-poohed the acquisition and price back in 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840

I don't really care for hilighting peoples past skepticism but this guy literally asked for it: --- [...] This is not going to be one of the best tech acquisitions of the next decade. YouTube helped to propel Google into content. It also helped to commoditise web video in a massive way: reminiscent of the way which Google commoditised search (YouTube is probably just short of being a byword for online video at this p…

To be fair, it isn't 2022 yet.

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

#229

Post by xkjkls »

balls187 wrote: post #104
394549 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Did he really predict that, or did he just see an upcoming potential competitive threat and buy it? I feel bad for the founders of Instagram. They could have been the next Zuckerberg(s) (as Instagram seems to be taking over as Facebook seems to be starting to fade), but i…

I'd feel bad for the employees who took unnecessary dilution less than a week before instagram was bought by facebook. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/instagram#section-lo...

I feel jealous of Sequoia VC's who managed to double their money in 4 days.

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

#230

Post by 089723645897236 »

protonimitate wrote: post #192
jmartrican wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest, I like ads that are relevant to the things I am interested in. I am no FB fan boy, but their ads are pretty good... I actually click on them. What's wrong with that?

Nothing. It's a win-win. Consumers get personalized, tailored ads. Businesses reach audiences that actually want their products. What annoys me are ads for products I've already purchased (amazon is terrible about this), or the same ad plastered 20 times across multiple sites. Instagram handles ads pretty well IMO. They are non-intrusive, easy to digest, and highly relevant. Facebook OTOH, has become one giant scroll…

Yeah, they only show me stuff I would have wanted if I knew it existed, which for me is the essence of discovery. If it was limited to this and only the HQ stuff, not the I SEE YOU WENT TO WEBSITE SO HERES THEIR BANNER AD FOR THE NEXT MONTH stuff.
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