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Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

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341–350 of 394 posts

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

#342
post #48

I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show off-y. On Facebook, it was a bit stigmatized to post a picture of an expensive purchase, amazing house interior, fancy vacation, or workout picture of your physique. However, it's the entire point of Instagram. Couple that in with all the brands and other accounts of inspira…

I think Instagram works because it's not as viral as Facebook. It's difficult to get into political flamewars. Also reposts and forwards look pathetically lame on Instagram, so people tend to post more original content.

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

#343
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty narrow Instagram experience. I follow my actual friends who post random things from their life, and then people from a few different hobbies. Except for watch people, none of it is carefully curated 'look at me' experiences. Watch people are another stripe though.... $20k on the wrist, $200k steering wheel.

I mean the only other point of buying a Patek other than showing it off is to keep it as something to give away to your unappreciative son

I like the quote about a Patek on Succession, "And it's amazingly accurate - every time you look at your wrist, you know -exactly- how rich you are."

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

#344

I simply do not understand the attraction of Instagram. My brother posts photos on it, and the quality of the pictures is rubbish. They're small, with compression artifacts. The app itself doesn't even let you pinch to zoom without snapping back when you let go (fair enough given how low resolution the pictures are). Obviously I'm looking at this wrong - it's clearly not an app for posting photos, because it sucks at…

Like all social media it's what you make it.

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

#345
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.

Similar to John Chambers, who used to run Cisco. He bought a tiny switching company called Kalpana (and a few others) for ~200MM back in 1994. Cisco dominated the switching market for a long, long, time as a result. It still accounts for nearly a third of Cisco revenues even today (~45 B total revenue in 2017).

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

#346

I am quite privacy conscious. I have deleted my FB account. On principle, I dislike targeted ads, user tracking, etc. BUT, I hate to admit this, the ads I get in Instagram are the most relevant I have ever gotten. I actually look forward to them, to discover new products. They are perfectly tailored to me. Dammit.

They've taken a long time to dial in for me. Initially, I received none, then ads that assumed I was female (I had my gender unset, but generally followed/liked fairly male things; yet received ads for menstruation underwear!), then ads that assumed I was Russian (I'm nowhere near Russia and can't speak/read any Russian; I follow one person who has a Russian background, but never interact with them). I've been on there for years and speak pretty openly about the things I like (travel, cooking, etc) - surprised it took so long to give me relevant ads!

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

#347

I simply do not understand the attraction of Instagram. My brother posts photos on it, and the quality of the pictures is rubbish. They're small, with compression artifacts. The app itself doesn't even let you pinch to zoom without snapping back when you let go (fair enough given how low resolution the pictures are). Obviously I'm looking at this wrong - it's clearly not an app for posting photos, because it sucks at…

It's not an app for posting photos exactly (even though it is), it's an app for showing people things. Here's my food, here's my outfit, here's what I was doing today, here's what the sunset looked like on my vacation. It's an interesting take on communications between people. It has its dark side (people going out of their way to "get the gram" so they can be envied by their friends instead of just trying to enjoy things organically; people, especially young women, who become overly pressured by their peer group to look and act a certain way) but when used well it can be a nice way to keep up with what your friends are doing. Think about it like a modern take on post cards.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you spend $4 billion on acquisitions and one of those becomes worth $100 billion that is a win no matter how you slice it.

of course it is win, no one is saying it's not a win, what im suggesting is there is a much higher probability that MZ got really lucky than assuming he some sort of clairvoyant genius.

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

#349
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Snapchat the best example? Snapchat is getting killed. Also, as it was made that Instagram only had 7 employees when they were purchased, that's actually one of major reasons why the acquisition worked so well. 7 employees for an application of that scale is not "swift and agile", it's criminally understaffed. After the Facebook acquisition, Facebook was able to easily redirect some of their hires to work on Insta…

Isn't that exactly OP's point? FB might have counterfactually opted to bury Instagram rather than drop tres comas buying it. Conceivably this could have cost x < $1b. In that world, Zuck is a fool for wasting $1b - x dollars, rather than the one we live in where he's hailed as a visionary for making $99b off the deal.

Could FB sell now for ~100B and then still proceed to bury it for $x?

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean I spend $100,000/month advertising on Facebook and Instagram, so it depends on what your definition of “bubble” is

What kind of product/service are you selling? Have you seen much indication that that has been money well spent?
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