Instagram is the new, hot start-up everyone is talking about nowadays.
Today, the blogosphere is abuzz because of its exponential increase of users (maybe more than a million now) and for other reasons.
Why is everyone talking about it?
First of all, Instagram may be the first international, social mobile experience.
You might ask me about Foursquare. Well, I’ll tell you that, unfortunately, Foursquare isn’t great. I can’t understand why so many people are talking about it and can’t find what is its utility. Foursquare seems to be mainly used by Americans and not by many Europeans (I live in Paris). And I also think that there is a problem with geolocation applications in general. Anyway, a recent Pew Study everyone was talking about the other day explains that only 4% of adults are “checking-in”.
Let’s be honest; I’m on Facebook, I don’t mind about rigorous privacy and my problem with geolocation isn’t about that. I agree that geolocation might be the future but there’s a disease striking the valley. Everyone is building a geolocation service: Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook and the stranger one? SCVNGR. Dude, recheck your start-up’s name. Stop this madness.
Places will be a moderate success. Facebook did not “educate” us on geolocation, their communication for this feature was disastrous and I feel like nobody’s using it—if they implement innovative features and thoroughly teach people how to use it, it may become mainstream. I’m not inducing that people are stupid nor that Facebook users are stupid. How we can measure the success of Places really depends on how Facebook defines success for Places. Must everybody who owns a smartphone use Places? However, it may be too soon to tell.
Let’s come back to Instagram.
Instagram will succeed for a few but vital reasons. I think that although Foursquare has the lead, Instagram will quickly come back.
- The first of Instagram’s advantages is that it appeals to another sense and stimulates it. I’m not going to dig deep into psychology’s role, but I think that the fact that we see actual photos of our friends is more interesting that seeing that he (or she) checked-in at the mall. It may need another social layer but my hopes are becoming reality. They are building a feature that could allow you to follow a friend, comment on photos and have a profile.
- Instagram has a very simple goal. Photo sharing. Sharing photos is way more explicit than checking-in to someplace because you might get a discount and a virtual badge. What do you do after checking-in? With Instagram, you share your enhanced (through filters) photos with your friends. Showing-off plays a huge part in this success. I understood Instagram’s goal directly. I’m still figuring out why Foursquare will ever be useful.
- Instagram is beautiful. This is undeniable. The quality of the application is incredible and the filters are just great.
- Finally Instagram has a wider range than any other application on the iPhone. Potentially everybody already took a photo with the iPhone and any Facebook user probably has shared a photo. Anyone would be up and going with Instagram in no time. People would already have photos in their Photos app and would upload a photo very easily. It’d be fun and entertaining.
But is Instagram useful? Foursquare may give you the opportunity to find deals at local businesses. But Instagram doesn’t have to be useful in the sense of productivity or matters of money. It just has to be entertaining in order to be successful. Ever heard of Zynga?
Now, how could they be successful?
In the first place, they have to open up a little. I mean they have to create profiles, allow more control over the web. Add more filters, stay beautiful.
Yet there will be a time when they will also have to find how to be profitable—but as we all know, becoming profitable means to kill the cool factor and that, ladies and gentlemen, would be a shame.
