Life-sharing for $1 billion

Life-sharing for $1 billion

The signifacant event happened in the media world a week ago. Facebook bought a popular photo-sharing service Instagram for an enormous sum of money of $1 billion in cash and stock. How can free mobile add cost such an incredible sum and why Marc Zuckerberg has decided to buy this very simple service? Let us look into phenomenon of Instagram itself and define the resons of its growing popularity.

First of all, we need to admit that the base of Instagram is a pictire. The pictire which has won the text. Stanford University graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger who launched a new iPhone application are supposed to be the first who meaningly and on purpose turn an amateur photography in the mean of social communication. The creators think Instagram is not about sharing photos but about the people who do it.

Secondly, Instagram could be considered as the last point of evolution(or dergradation - it depends from which point of view we will consider) of the social media, well and in detail described by Google veteran Elad Gil. Its main charesteristics:

1) information transmission by photos or pictures. We has entered into the "screen epoch" and it's no reason to write if we can share our information or emotions faster and brightly with picture. Several years ago society was confused (обеспокоено) with real communication being replaced by online one - people preferred to text massages and forgot how to speak. Nowadays young generation is too lazy even to text messages or to organize an event in facebook conversation. Instagram users communicate through photos. You don't need to tell your friends you are going out this evening - they will understand it by your new pictures and join you in a bar (you put a location near photo). People even started to write an announcements or invitations in the поле message, then make a screenshot and post it. 

2) photographical information could be interpreted as more honest, sincere and democratic one 3) photography wipes language and cultural barriers - not every person can explain himself with words, but everyone can show what he sees through camera lens 4) "button communication" - the way from an emotion to a post takes few seconds as a result of pushing of several buttons 5) "social content curation" - content isn't lost in a public newsfeed, but is being structured automatically and creates a visial portrait of user's life. What was aimed in the beginning to become popular with new so-called hipster culture and "visual generation" now is conquering older generations and other social groups. Recently launched Android add was updated by more a million people during first 24 hours. Moreover, success of new photo-social network Pinterest is connected with its popularity with american housewifes.

Thirdly, Instagram is a perfect mean for "popular", easy-understood creative work. Let us imagine a service for sharing other types of creation such as poetry. Poetical Instagram - user writes key words of his poem, choses style filter, pushes the button and his followers can read his piese of art automatically generated with Shekespeare, Biron or Bodler style. However, nowadays there is no service which could replace a real compostion work. Fortunately. While photography appeared as the best sphere to satisfy the mass demand of popular amateur creation. The phenomenon of mobilography has been already known and desribed, but a new option appeared now - filters. Scientists and phsycologists defined this as "technologisation of creation process". The simplest regular shot after passing through filters appears as independent piece of art, result of creative work. 

It causes a lot of dicussions and contraversions. On one hand, a photo-sharing add and its numerous copies are catastrophically increasing the quality standarts and are killing the market of professional photography. On the other hand, there people who are sure it made the photography more available and destroyed "sacral process" of taking photos.

Moreover, according to phsycologists instagram filters appeared to be popular because they can be used as means of efficient embellishment of reality. Photoservice hepls to satisfact a mass neccesity to present their life better that it is, to seem and not to be, to make people think what you want.

The last and very important point - the elitism of Instagram. However, it's in the past now. After appearing the add for Android started the angry discussions about marginalisation and future degradation of the service. After the transaction between fb and insta some users deleted their accounts - it was a riot of very early iphone add users who made this service mass and cult.

One of the main reasons of instagram popularity - the image of elitism, selection and mass unavailability of service which cultivated by marketers on purpose Obviously, the key role played a choice of the first platphorme - Apple with its closed ecosystem, expensive gatgets, very loyal and estetic audience. When the amount of users became more than 10 millioms they understand Instafram can easily go over every platphorme. This fact proved the later service development. To pack very simple and free product into glossy cover and to make it so professionally that it would determine the matter - very difficult deal.

According to one of the versions the formers of instagram had an opportunity to launch an add for android, but they delayed it on purpose and did only after an agreement with fb - being afraid that an image of selection would be lost within the pics of Android users.