
Instagram CEO on Stories: Don’t Call It a Copycat - kyleblarson
http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/30/instagram-ceo-on-stories-dont-call-it-copycat.html
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brlewis
My favorite part due to its candor:

 _WSJ: You seem to have thought about this a lot.

Mr. Systrom: It's because I do a lot of these interviews where people ask a
lot of these questions._

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sushid
My favorite of the bunch:
[https://twitter.com/patrickswong/status/847116772499079168](https://twitter.com/patrickswong/status/847116772499079168)

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segmondy
I think Facebook's end goal with Instagram through their blatant and shameless
copying is to signal to all newcomers, if you refuse to be acquired, they will
crush you using the power of their existing market & network effects. If I
have a startup that I do like to rid out for a long time and Facebook comes
calling, I'm more likely to sell out and move on if I haven't won the market,
rather than watch them crush me by copying my features and adding to their
platform.

~~~
saurik
You do understand that all of Facebook is nothing more than a better executed
"blatant and shameless copy" of MySpace, right? ...and that MySpace was
nothing more than a better executed "blatant and shameless copy" of
Friendster, right?

~~~
RickS
I think that does facebook a pretty severe disservice. Facebook was, in many
ways, the anti-myspace at a time when that was a very welcome development. The
lack of profile skinning, the real name policy, and by extension the
reflection of an offline network (vs the band spam of myspace) made it a
significantly different offering.

I'd go so far as to say that the difference is what allowed them to coexist
with myspace for so long. It's not as though they launched and then myspace
promptly fell over. The two were side by side for years, the same way FB and
snapchat are/were.

Compared to that, the IG stories feature is a much more direct imitation. The
geofilter and text implementation are so similar that, to anyone but a power
user, a screenshot of a post from each would be indistinguishable.

With that said, I can't say I'm mad to see snapchat in decline. They put pepsi
ads between videos of people I care about. Straight to the dumpster with that.

~~~
jfaat
How is putting pepsi ads between videos of people you care about any different
than what Facebook does?

~~~
RickS
It isn't

my IG stories (the snapchat competitor) are, at the moment, ad free, as is my
feed.

Facebook is certainly guilty of that, so I'm off there too.

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libeclipse
It's fully a copycat, there's nothing else to call it.

I mean I'm all for it, it was well-executed on Instagram.

But past that was complete overkill. WhatsApp, really? I'm shown stories from
everyone in my contact list, really? It's completely useless. And Facebook?
For the love of God why?

~~~
intoverflow2
> For the love of God why?

Because Snap didn't accept the cheque, it's starting to feel like a personal
vendetta.

I find it hard to believe it being anything else I mean what's the
alternative? That all 3 teams completely ran out of creativity at the same
point and decided to clone the same features at the same time? Far more likely
that these orders are coming down from the top.

~~~
corobo
The vendetta is starting to make vanilla Facebook annoying to use. I'm not
sure if it's maybe because I'm left handed so all my swipes are with the wrong
hand or something but I keep opening the damn camera while browsing Facebook
now

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an_account
It's very obviously a copycat. That okay of course, but it's definitely a
copycat.

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vadym909
If you have no qualms about copying it- at least have the fucking balls to
admit it. Don't hide behind Ford and the other automakers who btw copied
Daimler.

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intrepidkarthi
Let's call it as "Copydog" here after.

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DennisAleynikov
"How do we get people on freebasics access to Snapchat? We make it ourselves
of course!"

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mschuster91
Hey Instagram, one thing: Stories need a way to filter out videos when on
mobile, or at least prevent autoplay.

Also, it sucks that one can only send "story" pictures in DMs now, which
delete after 24h and you can't even download them after you send them, in
contrast to the old "photo" send mode, where the images stayed in the
conversation and were visible online.

~~~
patmurraydev
I disagree with your first point, if you're using Instagram you're accepting
it will be using a lot of data. Further, part of the thing that makes Stories
a great feature is the smooth storytelling that would be lost if a "Download
this video" button appeared.

I completely agree with your second point however. Make it more like Snapchat
and have both types of direct messages; ephemeral and permanent.

~~~
bschwindHN
> if you're using Instagram you're accepting it will be using a lot of data

You're in favor of autoplay that can't be disabled?

~~~
mschuster91
> You're in favor of autoplay that can't be disabled?

Especially not for fucking ads. Worst is: most Instagram videos are
crapshoots. Low quality, high compression - typical for selfie videos. Which
means they're tolerable. But story ads tend to be high-quality productions...
requiring sometimes 10+MB.

For reference: common smartphone data plans in Germany are 1-3 GB per month,
for 10-30€. 5GB offers are rare and you won't get more than 10 even with
expensive business packages.

~~~
MarkCole
Hi,

I also live in Germany and my experience is a little different. I know several
people with 6gb plans for less than 20€, and if you're willing to pay 30€+/mo
then 10/15/20gb LTE plans are possible.

Have you tried a comparison site such as Check24? You'll usually find great
deals on high data packages. You might have to sacrifice on SMS or Telephone
minutes for a high data plan though.

~~~
mschuster91
Most of the cheap plans are prepaid or resellers, which often enough don't
give LTE or limit the speed. Or they're using the O2 network which you can't
really use for anything that demands bandwidth or performance or if you need
good countrywide coverage.

Also, _all_ non-first-class customers (i.e. everyone except direct contract
customers of the three telcos) get lower priority on the network, both for
calls and data.

~~~
MarkCole
Most of the cheap plans are prepaid or resellers but those that advertise LTE
really do give LATE in my experience.

The O2 network here is terrible for 4G I agree the other two are much better.

Is the lower priority actually noticeable though? Like have their been any
third party tests? I'd never heard that until today but it does make sense I
guess. They want their own traffic to come first.

~~~
mschuster91
> Most of the cheap plans are prepaid or resellers but those that advertise
> LTE really do give LATE in my experience.

The question is, which level of LTE? If it's capped at anything between 10-15
MBit/s there will be no advantage over HSDPA, versus the 150+ MBit/s you can
get via proper LTE.

> The O2 network here is terrible for 4G I agree the other two are much
> better.

Yeah, but markedly more expensive.

> Is the lower priority actually noticeable though?

Go to any bigger event, say a huge anti-nazi rally, Oktoberfest or rock
festivals. I was in Cologne a couple of weeks, approximately 20k people
attended. My LTE tablet (O2) had no internet at all. My business phone
(Vodafone) had proper internet access, and my private cellphone (Lebara, using
Telekom network which is inarguably the best) had massive issues.

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MengerSponge
$SERVICE will now have stories is my favorite tech meme of the year.

For example:
[https://twitter.com/OFFICIALTALLAL/status/848412009146331136](https://twitter.com/OFFICIALTALLAL/status/848412009146331136)

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adhipg
Tangentially relevant:
[https://github.com/ramon82/zuck.js](https://github.com/ramon82/zuck.js)

On HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14135045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14135045)

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intoverflow2
Can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be in one of these teams working
under the Snapchat-feature-clone product strategy of recent FB.

~~~
alexandersingh
That probably depends on the narrative they're told and their propensity to
believe it.

"Copy this Snapchat feature" vs "Stories are a new storytelling medium" vs.
"We need to do this because Snap is a grave threat and Facebook's survival
depends on your work" are all very different narratives to sell to the team.

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weixiyen
No shame in being Microsoft to Snap's Apple.

~~~
intoverflow2
I understand that for a product like FB, but Instagram was well loved and
certainly wasn't the Microsoft in any relationship until recently.

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imikay
Whether it's copycat or not, it works.

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bitmapbrother
Where's HN Stories?

