Who remembers the ‘Dotcom Bubble’? When everyone went mad about online.
Back then internet businesses were valued in the millions and billions before they had even started trading. Then someone went ‘Hang on a lastminute.com’ and the whole thing went down the swanny.
Well you could be mistaken for thinking history is repeating itself. Mark Zuckerberg, the head chap at Facebook bought something called ‘Instagram’ for $1 billion.
Instagram – proving you can have your cake and eat it
Instagram is an App you can download onto your iPhone. So I thought ‘I need that App. It must be amazing but I bet it costs a fortune’. I mean the company that made it is worth $1 billion. Not on paper either, but real cash!
So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be free. And imagine my further surprise when I realised that it is a simple little thing that takes a photo and adds a filter to make the photo look older, lighter or darker. Thats it basically.
So how good is it?
Here are a few example of what Instagram can do to your pictures:
The best thing about Instagram is you can take nice clean digital photos and then rough them up a bit to look like you took them with your Dad’s Instamatic or Polaroid back in the 70′s or 80′s. Beer exemplifies this:
How about a nice Tricolore Salad. I took this shot in a London restaurant a while back, but not as far back as the picture on the right might suggest…
Finally I have found an excuse to post this picture of this street entertainer – he just stands there and moves incredibly slowly while everyone else rushes about.
So there you have it – effectively the Instagram App makes ordinary photos look different. And it was sold for $1b, to be shared between 13 staff.
Of course Zuckerburg has a plan – Facebook is grabbing anything that can compete with it. It will lock out the rest of the market by simply making offers that cannot be refused. After all where else can Facebook go? All it is is a glorified messaging service. Blogging on the other hand is social media for people with something to say! So maybe WordPress better watch out….
Business is really not straightforward any more. How do they make money? By telling “them” where you really live. Oh my gosh, we really aren’t alone. … Am I beginning to sound paranoid? Perhaps it is because I am on crackberry and have no access to all the cool apps.
They finally came out with it for Android – and I love it! My oldest however thinks it’s absolutely stupid and can’t figure out why you’d want to make pictures look old. He’s no fun!
Well in twenty years he’ll be thinking exactly the same thing
I think I totally missed the boat somewhere on the Instagram thing. It was one of the first apps I downloaded onto my iPhone, and I think I played with it once before getting bored.
Actually, the most used app for me is Swackett, a weather app. It dumbs down the weather and just tells me what to wear in the morning instead of giving me a number and letting me puzzle it out. It’s so great. Instead of asking myself, “Hmmmm, do I need a jacket?” there is just an icon of a dude wearing a jacket.
I know. I’m a lame-o!
No that is really great. I’ll let the Mrs know about it…
I feel really out of it. I’m hooked on Photoshop.
Man a dog using Photoshop is impressive none the less.
Try webstragram
Is funny you mention it, I just downloaded that app for my twitter (my daughter insisted on it
)
Very nice post, didn’t know the story behind the app…
I adore Instagram.. it’s a fun way to play with photos as you did and post them directly to Facebook.. yes, I wonder about WordPress?
It surprisingly addictive and it reminds me of the photos we have of ourselves as kids – all faded and dodgy colours.
Ah… Good old Stella
Yes the one you see here sent me to bed for half an hour. Midday drinking and me dont mix!
I’m a little addicted to instagram and I must stop!!
It is quite fun. It would be nice if you could use it on your laptop (I’m assuming you can’t) then you could Instagram all your old photos withoug having to download them to your phone first
The Reason that Zuckerboy bought Instagram was that, like you, he thought ‘Hey, that app looks good. I think I’ll buy it’. Unfortunately he actually said it out loud in the middle of a FB finance meeting and some bright young thing thought that he really meant it and … kerching … out went the cheque!
That guy has money to burn. I mean he really has just burnt it – he can’t think what to do with it!
Man. He is such a tool
Yes he’s a web-based tool!
Ha ha! So true!
I have seen this Instagram in many blogs. Is it only for Iphone users?
They’ve just stuck it on Google Play (and got 1 million downloads within hours!)