Why is Instagram different on Android
Social effects photography software is finally coming to Android after almost a year and a half of waiting. The phenomenon born on iOS will be able to continue its conquest?The Instagram app is now available on Android, for version 2.2 and higher, and has already been updated. Unlike the iOS version, on Android, it is not currently possible to see the effects applied in real time and the TiltShift function is also absent. But Instagram isn’t just any app, it’s quite a phenomenon. Its principle has already won over nearly 30 million users. It must be said that behind the apparent simplicity of its offer hides a double attraction.
That of taking photos at any time with your smartphone before applying an artistic filter, with a nostalgic-film connotation, among the big fortnight available (Lo-Fi, Earlybird, X-pro II, Hefe, etc.).
These filters play a big part in the success of the application, you just have to see user comments with each update that changes them or makes one disappear. It is also enough to know that certain professional photoreporters now work exclusively with their iPhone and Instagram, including for orders for major American dailies, which is not without asking some ethical questions (a filtered, aestheticized and staging always an objective testimony?).
Photographic community
But the second effect, the 2.0 effect, which made Instagram so successful, is its community dimension. Every photo you take is posted online to Facebook and Twitter, if you choose. Therefore, as long as you use the right tags and have a good contact book, you will quickly be followed by many people who will love your photos and will thus make them known to those who follow them. Guaranteed social snowball effect.The arrival on Android will open wide the doors of this service and this application to a very large number of new users, the number of activated Android smartphones being more than twice that of iPhones, according to the latest studies in dated. Especially since, according to Instagram, 430,000 Android users have indicated their interest in a version of the application that can run on their smartphone.
Economic model
Instagram is therefore a kind of success story, which does not seem to end soon. The small structure of 13 employees has just completed a new fundraising round of around 40 million dollars, which would bring its total valuation to nearly 500 million dollars.However, a question arises, that of Instagram’s business model. So far, the company has found investors solely on the basis of its growth and its position as a benchmark in this sector - a position reinforced by its recent agreement with another similar but partially paid service Hipstamatic. However, the free service gives rise to many questions about its economic model, its sustainability or the way in which its founders will “monetize” their work. Journalists who did not dare to question them face to face did not get a response. No more than us who tried to ask them the question by interposed emails.
We could therefore say that Instagram is still in the audience acquisition phase, which is true, and that the business model will come later. However, this unclear situation around the economic model could become worrying for financiers, some original investors not having wished to continue the adventure, for this same reason, but also for users. The case of Twitter, another free giant, may sound like a warning to our ears.
Any leads for the future?
In Instagram's FAQ, the question "How are you going to make money?" ", We can read that the company plans to continue providing the" core of their product "free of charge, but that it is possible to charge for special filters. “Regardless, (Instagram) thinks they are trying out different models as they grow and learn what brings special value to the community. A beginning of answer, but all this remains rather vague in spite of everything. We get a slightly more precise vision of the possible. In its terms of use, Instagram clearly declares that it does not claim any ownership rights over texts, files, images, photos, videos, sounds (...) that are posted or pass through Instagram services.As a filtered photo service, Instagram could add more strings to its bow. However, it is the sequence of these conditions that commands attention. Users guarantee to Instagram “a limited, non-exclusive right, free from payment and royalty obligations, for the whole world, to use, modify (…), reproduce or translate the“ content ”(… ) in any type of format and via any media channel. "Image banks? Art books? Advertising recommendations. Everything is therefore possible.
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