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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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
Instagram stories seem popular but either I have the wrong friends or really no one ever uses Whatsapp stories. Don't think I've ever seen a story there and it's the messenger I use for ~95% of my contacts.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
You can get anything you want with expensive business packages, including unlimited data. I use a wifi hotspot using an unlimited and fast LTE connection whenever I business travel (not sure what they pay for it, I think we even have boxes that pool multiple providers but personally I never used them). Telekom even publically advertises an unlimited LTE plan nowadays (but that is 200€ a month).
However, the typical consumer plans are pretty limited.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Are you saying there are Instagram story ads? I never encountered those. Only ads on my feed. I'm on iOS and use Mozilla's Focus content blocker (which seems to have been pulled from the App Store and replaced by Firefox Klar).
Yep there are, approx. 1-2 a day. I'm on Android, they seem to be rolling out changes in waves, not all at once, though - you may simply be left in a bucket without story ads...
That's cumbersome - I have to take the photo first using normal Camera app, then switch back to Instagram, and then choose the photo. But still, better than nothing - thanks for the hint.
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.
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.