

Ads may come to Instagram - jalanco
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/12/12/ads_coming_to_instagram_users_appalled_to_learn_facebook_is_a_business.html

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jemka
1\. Facebook is a for profit company.

2\. Facebook probably wants to seek a direct monetary ROI on Instagram.

3\. Facebook may or may not have figured out that strategy. Either way, not
revealing those details is an indication of nothing beyond standard business
practice.

4\. Some users don't like ads, which is evident by the popularity of ad
blocking tools.

5\. Some users don't mind ads, some even click on them, which is evident by
the revenue ads generate.

What part of this article brings anything new to the table that we haven't
known for months/years?

~~~
aes256
> 5\. Some users don't mind ads, some even click on them, which is evident by
> the revenue ads generate.

Don't underestimate people clicking ads for the wrong reasons (e.g. they don't
realize it's an ad, the ad makes misleading or incorrect claims, the user is
just using the ad as a convenient shortcut to a website when searching for it
on Google, etc.)

I'd guesstimate this to be the majority of ad clicks and revenue.

~~~
asanwal
Sorry but this guesstimate is a bit absurd. If the majority of ad clicks were
ineffective or for wrong reasons, Google's $231 billion market cap would be
tough to justify.

~~~
001sky
These are not mutually exclusive concepts, just FYI.

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catshirt
you're suggesting the majority of google's ad revenue is misclicks?

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001sky
_US Digital Ad Spending to Top $37 Billion in 2012 as Market Consolidates.
Google alone to account for 41.3% of total US digital ad revenues_

(1) A majority of Google is ~21% of total market.

(2) 79% of the total market is a Majority of the Market.

(3) 59% of the total market is a Majority of the Market.

and so forth...

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kyllo
Kind of a condescending article. Really, Instagram pulled an enormous bait-
and-switch. Create a great application, give it away for free until you've
built up a huge base of users, then sell the application and its user base to
another company and let them figure out how to actually make money off it.

Understandably users are going to be upset because they're being asked to
either pay for or see ads with something that they used to get for free and
ad-free. People will always be upset when you take something away, even if you
gave it to them for free.

~~~
goatforce5
How's it a bait and switch? Should free things be provided to you forever? If
something is being given to you for free, shouldn't you realize that at some
point money has to enter the equation?

“If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product
being sold.”

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
Everyone trots out that line in a cargo-cultish manner. Thing is, you're still
'the product being sold' once you become a paying customer.

~~~
shoopy
Not for startups! They're special.

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juiceandjuice
I like how they used twitter to complain about a social media application
having ads.

~~~
lucisferre
This proves just how far you can trust the stated intentions of free users.

------
quarterto
Either: Facebook have no imagination. Or: Slate (and the internet) has the
wrong end of the stick.

Scenario the first.

So FB dropped a cool billion on a photo-sharing social network and app with a
sizeable, vehemently dedicated and pretty damn vocal userbase. Now they want
to make money out of it. Fine.

"So guys, Instagram monetization. Hit me." "Um." "Um." "Ads?" "Perfect!"

I (and I'm sure a large majority of Instagram users) am pretty much instantly
put off by ads. Especially in-app or in-feed apps. Any ad space sold on my
screen is pretty much money wasted.

Scenario the second.

There have to be other ways to make money from Instagram that make _one iota_
of sense given the community and demographic. Premium filters maybe? I'm just
sayin'.

~~~
ryanwhitney
No, it's that Business Insider writes trolly headlines. Nowhere in the
interview did Facebook say nor "confirm" they were adding ads to Instagram.

~~~
dmix
Ugh, you're right. The actual quote:

    
    
        BI: Will you put ads in Instagram?
        CE: Eventually we'll figure out a way to monetize Instagram.
    

So they're a basically just leaving the option on the table...

This is modern media 101.

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runT1ME
They don't really need 'ads', just corporate accounts, right?

When someone creates an account they could immediately be following a Coca
Cola, BMW and Apple instagram account.

They could even make it a requirement to follow a small number of brands.

I for one wouldn't be too pissed if an occasional cool picture of an apple
store or BMW came up in my feed...

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debacle
Headline in a year: "Instagram Owners Appalled To Learn That Users Don't Like
Ads"

The fact of the matter is that, as long as the VC treadmill keeps moving,
there will be start-ups earlier in the cycle willing to take the place of
start-ups like Instagram and Facebook (which are trying to find a way towards
profitability).

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zissou
I expected to see (theonion.com) at the end of this title after reading it.

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404error
They should partner with <http://printstagr.am/> and make money off their
users.

~~~
lancefisher
I've used printstagr.am, and liked it. The prints are fun just like the
instagram photos. It would be cool if this were built in to Instagram, and I
could mail the prints as a gift.

~~~
404error
Yup that's what I was thinking. Build in the functionality to order prints
straight from the app. They could expand to postcards which I think would be
awesome.

~~~
danudey
Expand it out even more. If you make a postcard or printout of my photo, give
me a cut of the money (even if it's a small one). Let me use that credit
towards my own postcards, or if I get a ton of it, cash it out.

It would also encourage brands to put good content up, rather than just being
a boring corporate mouthpiece, which is always a plus.

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larrydavid
Articles that cherry pick comments from Twitter and then announce it as some
sweeping generalization need to stop. The evidence for the headline is based
on 4 screenshots of some random tweets.

It happened recently with the MS vs Android malware 'backlash' and also when
Instagram was released for Android.

Just because you can cherry pick tweets from the vocal minority to form your
attention grabbing headline doesn't mean it applies to the entire user base.

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slykat
The title of this should be "Facebook is looking at ways to monetize its
billion dollar investments, much like every other public company in world."

I'm not sure how this is even worthy of an article.

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JeremyMorgan
They've never confirmed they're doing ads.

But I would think something similar to in game items would work great. Aviary
for instance has a great set of standard filters, and some "extras" you can
buy. I have already purchased one.

Would I have clicked on an ad anytime in the next year? probably not

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nnash
Hopefully they have a simple ad-free version of the app costing anywhere
between $1.00-$5.00, for those of us that don't mind paying for an ad free
experience.

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vlokshin
lol @ "may"

