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Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion - Page 2

post #41 of 72
4/9/12 at 12:58pm
It was just a few weeks ago that Tim Cook said he considered Facebook a friend to Apple and hopes they work more closely together. I can see the potential for some very upset iPhone/iPad owners if Apple builds in more robust Facebook support.

melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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post #42 of 72
4/9/12 at 2:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Yeah, even going by a desktop market of 1 million units/year with $100 OS, it would have been worth more.

It possibly wasn't as sure a bet though as it depended on uptake. Instagram, as mentioned, already has over 30 million accounts so to justify the cost, they only have to make just over $30 per user.

Facebook makes it's money from advertising so say they get 50c per click from advertisers for 10% of the subscribers per day. How long before they make their billion back? Less than 2 years. Their subscriber base will of course grow when it's advertised on Facebook.

They have to make a lot more than that. They bought a company and its development team, not just source code. More to the point, they don't have 30 million paying customers.

The App is Free. Most people don't take kindly to a Free-->Pay service. They much prefer a perceived premium service for pay from the start.

Facebook will also not charge but amortize the cost through advertising.

http://instagram.com/about/faq/
Quote:
How will you make money?

We believe that the core of our product will always be free. There will be opportunities for consumers to buy extra add-ons like special filters, etc. However, we plan to experiment with different models as we grow and learn what special value we can provide to the community to make their collective experience more engaging, exciting and useful.

Assets:

Quote:
Who are your investors?

We raised a $500,000 seed round from Andreessen-Horowitz and Baseline Ventures, and a $7 million Series A from Benchmark Capital and a small group of angel investors. Were very excited to be working with investors who have a proven track record and experience in the space with investments like Twitter and Foursquare.

Another Marc Andreessen bomb.

Let me guess, ``This will be for photos what Twitter is for short messaging.''
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post #43 of 72
4/9/12 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht View Post

$622.5M in 2011 dollars. But hey, it's not a valid social .com acquisition unless you overpay.

About $250 M in 1996 dollars, which while less than the NeXT purchase still illustrates how overpriced this purchase is. Oh, and how sh*tty the dollar is.

Who says you can't have it all?

(Of course I believe that inflation is 1-2% a year, that's what the government says. If actual prices don't match that, it's because we're just buying the wrong things... like food, gas, and property. )
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post #44 of 72
4/9/12 at 2:36pm
Apple has several Patents on this technology they can deploy for iOS. I find this purchase to be an insult to perspective buyers of the upcoming IPO.

Facebook is looking more and more like what it is--a 2012 Yahoo/Netscape Portal with Friends reconnecting and staying connected--nothing more, nothing less.

All Businesses paying Facebook for product advertisement and placement are wise to redirect the bulk of their brand back to their own domains.
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post #45 of 72
4/9/12 at 2:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacVicta View Post

Time to find an Instagram alternative.

I'm surprised Microsoft doesn't have "Old timey photo enhancer Live!" as part of Windows 7 or Bing. The old Microsoft would be all over that for fear of missing out.
"And just like that, everyone here realizes you're just another sweaty little Google licker with an axe to grind and no idea what he's talking about." --addabox
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"And just like that, everyone here realizes you're just another sweaty little Google licker with an axe to grind and no idea what he's talking about." --addabox
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post #46 of 72
4/9/12 at 4:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacVicta View Post

Time to find an Instagram alternative.

The only way I'll continue using Instagram is if there is a strict separation and users are allowed to not have to share any photos on FB. Also, I don't want to have to change my login to be the same as my FB account.
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post #47 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:14pm
Interesting to see some other folks deleting instagram. Thats the first thing I did when I read this. I have no interest in having any of my photos being available on Facebook. These days, there is no way you can be 100% private, but at least you can try to stop the obvious.
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post #48 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

They have to make a lot more than that. They bought a company and its development team, not just source code. More to the point, they don't have 30 million paying customers.

The App is Free. Most people don't take kindly to a Free-->Pay service. They much prefer a perceived premium service for pay from the start.

Facebook will also not charge but amortize the cost through advertising.

http://instagram.com/about/faq/


Assets:



Another Marc Andreessen bomb.

Let me guess, ``This will be for photos what Twitter is for short messaging.''

Facebook doesn't want your money. They want all of your private information, so they can sell it to ad buyers!
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post #49 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mistergsf View Post

The only way I'll continue using Instagram is if there is a strict separation and users are allowed to not have to share any photos on FB. Also, I don't want to have to change my login to be the same as my FB account.

For at least the first year FB will bury the opt out process so deep that people will just give up and accept it.
We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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post #50 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland View Post

I am going to vomit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

F U C K sake Apple! If you let Twitter slip away I won't forgive you. I have been tweeting you to buy Instagram for 6 months!

And just how would buying twitter make any sense for Apple? How is twitter going to make money? Sell ads?

Typical Twitterheads.. The lack of business insight and the inability to understand the long-term implications of their actions. Instant gratification. The future of our country is bleak.

Go have a $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks and tweet the other sheep all about it. And maybe they will get a pop-up ad for a coupon to save on their next Starbucks.
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post #51 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by msimpson View Post

And just how would buying twitter make any sense for Apple? How is twitter going to make money? Sell ads?

Typical Twitterheads.. The lack of business insight and the inability to understand the long-term implications of their actions. Instant gratification. The future of our country is bleak.

Go have a $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks and tweet the other sheep all about it. And maybe they will get a pop-up ad for a coupon to save on their next Starbucks.

There's value in 100 million + users. Apple is a smart company and could figure out a plan... I'm sure that if Twitter was the right price then it would be well worth it.

Someone will buy Twitter soon.

[oh yeah... and I doubt Ireland is a twitterhead]
We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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post #52 of 72
4/9/12 at 5:58pm
i'm not at all into taking good pictures and screwing up the colors and doing destructive editing. i should make my billions making an un-instagram app for people who want to see their photos the right way in 1 or 10 years.
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post #53 of 72
4/9/12 at 6:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit View Post

Someone will buy Twitter soon.

I sure hope it's not Google or Facebook
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #54 of 72
4/9/12 at 7:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

I sure hope it's not Google or Facebook

I wish Twitter bough instagram to be honest...and I hope no one buys Twitter...and I agree about hopefully not Google or Facebook.
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post #55 of 72
4/9/12 at 8:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post

I wish Twitter bough instagram to be honest...and I hope no one buys Twitter...and I agree about hopefully not Google or Facebook.

I doubt it. Twitter has not demonstrated a willingness to be bought out by a big company. They are a bigger company and are making money (unlike Instagram). Right now its valued at over 8 billion and they are getting funding quite regularly. From what I have read of the owners is that they arent interested in a buyout - they have had big offers before.

Anyhow, Twitter had no reason to acquire Instagram - they have their own service and Instagram already directly integrates into Twitter already. They already benefit from them.
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post #56 of 72
4/9/12 at 8:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Techboy View Post

Are they even generating revenue??? Not that I care if Facebook wants to throw away their money, just saying.

If you put you pictures online anywhere without a password, they are effectively public domain, and you lose ownership.
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post #57 of 72
4/9/12 at 9:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Naboozle View Post

Such a stupid business model. Like many people I take steps to actively avoid online ads. Of the ones that sneak through, I pay little heed to them and the more they are "targeted" at me the more obvious and ridiculous they are.

I play this cat & mouse game too. We already lost the war. Many of my friends are on Facebook and twitter. These are smart people who have determined that the FaceBook/Google model gives them free social networking. They find the services more valuable than the privacy. The networks aren't cheap to run and those friends all agree (except me) that the likes of Facebook should be able to make profit.

We lost this war a while back and now this is the new brave world. We'll just have to learn to live within it and try our best to keep our private stuff off the grid but allow models like FB to make money. \
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post #58 of 72
4/9/12 at 9:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post

I do the same thing too. I don't even see ads since I use AdBlock. But you will be surprised how many people out there click those ads. It is stupid business model but it works! $1 billion for a two year business is super success.

I use all the programs available to me to block ads. I still see them, even with ad blocker, because they got smart and know that ads created in HTML5 is almost impossible to block.
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post #59 of 72
4/9/12 at 9:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacMichiel View Post

I agree. I'll delete it and won't use it again !

They already got your pictures and you won't get them back even if you delete them from your interface. Facebook just bought them and has them with your name in the private database that you cannot get at.
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post #60 of 72
4/9/12 at 9:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freshmaker View Post

Not really sure why FB would make this move as I don't know how they're going to generate revenue through it, but I like FB and Instagram so hopefully it's a good marriage.

If people read my other post in this thread, this mentality in the above comment proves what I'm talking about. There is no right or wrong here. They have their reason, as do I. But there are more of them today and less of us old timers who knew the Internet when it was free of ads and privacy was king. The young generation doesn't care about the book theme of 1984, as we did.
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post #61 of 72
4/9/12 at 9:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

Welcome to the second coming of the dot bomb.

Isn't that the truth!
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Mac Pro Dual 2.8 Quad (1st gen), 14G Ram, Two DVD-RW Drives, OS X 10.7
Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz, SuperDrive, ATI X1600, 2GB RAM, OS X 10.7
2010 Mac Mini with Plex as a HTPC
1TB Time Capsule
32G...
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post #62 of 72
4/9/12 at 11:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

Another Marc Andreessen bomb.

I'm guessing wildly, and have zero inside information, but I'd bet he turned that $500k into something approaching $100M.

So yeah, what a bomb.
photographer, troublemaker, etc.
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photographer, troublemaker, etc.
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post #63 of 72
4/10/12 at 3:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit View Post

There's value in 100 million + users. Apple is a smart company and could figure out a plan... I'm sure that if Twitter was the right price then it would be well worth it.

Why?

Maybe I'm just oblivious, but I can't think of a single reason why Apple would want to buy Twitter. Last time I checked Apple was a hardware/software company, not an ad-company, and not into user tracking and profiling. They'd better not try to become one either because if that happens, I'm out.

Quote:
Someone will buy Twitter soon.

Yes, someone probably will buy Twitter eventually. Facebook would probably love to have it. Microsoft could be another candidate, for the simple fact they don't want anyone else to have it, and to give their own search & ad business a much-needed boost.

What will probably happen is what I've been predicting all the time: Twitter gets bought by a big-name company, and within a year or two, some alternative based on the same principles as Twitter but more useful and less noisy will pop-up, and Twitter will be worth nothing. In 5 years it will be gone completely.

The only reason Twitter is popular is because it is the first service of its kind, but if you just look how useless it actually is now that everyone is using it, it can't last long. 99.999% of the crap posted on Twitter has zero value, it's all just noise.
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post #64 of 72
4/10/12 at 4:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by d-range View Post

Last time I checked Apple was a hardware/software company, not an ad-company, and not into user tracking and profiling. They'd better not try to become one either because if that happens, I'm out.

Apple's iAD is already profiling and tracking you. Clearly they aren't as large or focused on it as Google, but I suspect they're pretty darn good at it. According to an earlier research paper concerning iAd, "This task examines approaches to content-based recommendation and also exploits the user-user collaboration which occurs within the search process in order to improve the quality of a search. iAd is researching user profiling by (both implicitly and explicitly) examining the actions of users in order to model user profiles which will then be employed to support user matching. The user profiles generated will model all aspects of user's interests (which will change over time) as well as the current status of the user.

Comments from European marketers using iAd corroborate that users are profiled and tracked, including data gathered via iTunes usage.

"Christophe Cauvy, head of digital, EMEA, at McCann-Erickson suggested iAd's appeal is obvious, while consumer insights provided by Apple strengthened such an offering further.

"The sheer number and profile of iPod touch and iPhone users is valuable," said Cauvy.

"The targeting aspect, using iTunes data in addition to demographics and location, is a great tool for advertisers. It's a rich experience for users."

Way too late to get that cat back in the bag. Apple already knows a heck of a lot about you.

http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/....news?ID=27524

melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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post #65 of 72
4/10/12 at 6:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by d-range View Post

Why?

Maybe I'm just oblivious, but I can't think of a single reason why Apple would want to buy Twitter. Last time I checked Apple was a hardware/software company, not an ad-company, and not into user tracking and profiling. They'd better not try to become one either because if that happens, I'm out.

So you've never heard of iAd? (as Gatorguy points out) (or was you answer tongue-in-cheek)

If not tongue-in-cheek then that deserves a "Hmmmmmmm...".
We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about. - Eric Schmidt
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post #66 of 72
4/10/12 at 8:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrstep View Post

About $250 M in 1996 dollars, which while less than the NeXT purchase still illustrates how overpriced this purchase is. Oh, and how sh*tty the dollar is.

$1B today is about $680M in 1996 dollars using an average of 2.44% inflation over the period.
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post #67 of 72
4/10/12 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland View Post

I am going to vomit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

F U C K sake Apple! If you let Twitter slip away I won't forgive you. I have been tweeting you to buy Instagram for 6 months!

I don't see the point. A bit of software that can throw a few lame filters over the top of a picture sounds like something that Apple could knock up themselves for very little.
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post #68 of 72
4/10/12 at 11:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution View Post

I don't see the point. A bit of software that can throw a few lame filters over the top of a picture sounds like something that Apple could knock up themselves for very little.

Exactly. What does Instagram do that iPhoto and Aperture don't already anyway?
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #69 of 72
4/10/12 at 5:01pm
Oh, you have to make sure non of your friends are using FB or Instagram. If they do and mentioned about you and have your pictures in FB or Instagram, FB knows about you all right.

Select your friends carefully. First question: do you use FB or Instagram? If yes, you're out.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

I am pleased to say that Facebook doesn't know a single thing about me, and they never will.

As for Instagram, well good for them. If somebody can make an app and then sell their company for a billion dollars a short time afterwards, then I'd say that's a decent achievement. Personally, I don't use Instagram, as I'm not a retarded hipster and I'm not into taking crappy photos and then applying all sorts of dumb filters to them. But to each their own.
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post #70 of 72
4/10/12 at 5:05pm
You have to remember what FB wants. It's not the Instagram business. It's the zillions of pictures on there. FB will do picture mine and tag all of them for ad purpose.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Exactly. What does Instagram do that iPhoto and Aperture don't already anyway?
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post #71 of 72
4/10/12 at 6:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ljocampo View Post

If you put you pictures online anywhere without a password, they are effectively public domain, and you lose ownership.

That's not true. Not even close.

Putting a picture online without a password would be like making a large painting and hanging it from the front of your house. The fact that others can see it does not mean that you lose your copyright.

Now, most of the major online services have something in their terms of service that makes it impossible for you to sue them for copyright infringement, but the mere act of posting does NOT waive your rights.

Similarly, if you have a FB account that no one can see without your permission and close down the access rights as much as possible, your rights are exactly the same as if your account is wide open.
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post #72 of 72
4/10/12 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta View Post

Similarly, if you have a FB account that no one can see without your permission and close down the access rights as much as possible, your rights are exactly the same as if your account is wide open.

Just an FYI:

"Facebook profiles are now set by default to let apps obtain all data from a user's friends except sexual preference, religion and political views. That means, for instance, even if a user has set his or her birthday, location and "online status" messages to be private to friends, their friends can approve an app that will also obtain that information."

melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

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