One Year After Facebook Acquisition, Instagram Delivers on Its Promise

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A year ago this week, Facebook surprised the world by announcing an agreement to acquire Instagram for a whopping $1 billion one month shy of its initial offering on the stock market. At the time, Instagram was a comparatively small but beloved mobile app for editing and sharing photos with no discernible revenue model. Facebook investors were worried it wouldn't contribute to Facebook's bottom line; Instagram users were worried the service they'd come to know and love would be absorbed into Facebook. In a note posted to Instagram's blog shortly after the deal was announced, Facebook co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom pledged that Instagram would remain essentially the same, and that under new owners, would continue to improve and evolve. He wrote: Read more... More about Facebook , Instagram , Business , and Apps Software Read more »

Instagram Didn’t Lose a Quarter of its Users, But it Is at Risk

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You can tell you've really become a part of the national discourse when the New York Post writes a sensationalist story about you. That's what happened to Instagram Friday morning, when the Post seized on numbers from AppData that showed the photo-sharing service had lost a quarter of its daily active users in the week since its Terms of Service debacle. But the data was misleading for so many reasons, it would make a good case study for a statistics class. First of all, the Post article was cherry-picking numbers. AppData's record of Instagram's Daily Active Users plummeted from 16.4 million on December 19 to 12.4 million today. But the number of people who used Ins… Continue reading... More About: instagram , The New York Post Read more »

Instagram Denies 25% Holiday User Drop From TOS Backlash, And Here Are Real Explanations For A Usage Dip

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Sure, it’s not unlike the New York Post to be  sensationalist . But in this case it misinterpreted data to suggest Instagram was hit harder by backlash to its terms of service changes than it actually was. Combined with it being a quiet-ish holiday news week, I am taking  a story  it published today on a 25 percent drop in Instagram users with a little more than a grain of salt. Basically, it notes that figures from AppData demonstrate that Instagram lost 4 million daily active users — nearly a 25 percent drop to 12.4 million from 16.4 million — between December 19 and December 26. And as the NYP terms it, people are walking away in a “rage against rules.” The Post blames the decline on Instagram’s new, more commercially-minded terms of service — which it rolled back on December 21, i.e., in the middle of its DAU plummet, in response to public outcry. To balance out that one-sided view, here are some further observations that give a slightly bigger picture about what is going on: – Yes, AppData notes that Instagram lost 4 million DAUs over the holiday period, as based on Facebook logins via the app Read more »

Drake Wants Royalties for YOLO Merchandise

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Canadian rapper Drake, who is widely credited with coining the acronym YOLO (for "you only live once"), wants to get a cut of merchandise using the phrase. Drake indicated as much on his Instagram stream on Christmas Day. One photo showed a display of YOLO hats at Walgreens. Drake's caption: "Walgreens....you gotta either chill or cut the cheque." In another photo, he put Macy's on notice, too, writing "Macy's...same goes for you," for the following pic: Drake, along with fellow rapper Rick Ross, introduced the term YOLO in the track "The Motto," which was introduced in late 2011. The term has since turned into a runaway success, becoming a runner-up for the Oxford Dictiona… Continue reading... More About: drake , instagram , licensing , YOLO Read more »

Still Down on Instagram? You Can Have 3 Months of Flickr Pro Free

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Flickr has a Christmas gift for all of you disgruntled Instagram users: three free months of its Pro service. While each month of Pro is worth just over $2 (or $24.95 per year), the offer still has its perks. You don't need to enter your credit card information to enroll, so it's a commitment-free trial. Flickr Pro lets you store images of up to 50 MB each, download high-resolution images, and upload and play HD videos. SEE ALSO: Instagram Slammed With Class Action Lawsuit Positioning itself as an Instagram alternative, Flickr has already launched photo filters for its mobile app. Have you forgiven Instagram or will you jump ship to a different platform such as Flickr Pro? Le… Continue reading... Read more »

Top Comments: Mashable Readers React to Instagram’s Terms of Service

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Monday, Dec. 17: Instagram Updates TOS Readers had varying reactions to Instagram's updates. Some felt that they were fair: If you don't like the terms of service, argued some users, you have the option not to use the service. Others were far more outraged. Click here to view this gallery. This week, the top comments on Mashable brought into focus both the state of the world around us and the constantly changing nature of our virtual lives. Our readers launched into debate when Instagram appeared to be making drastic changes to its privacy policy. Based on the wording of Instagram's new Terms of Service , photographers worried that they may no longer own the rights to their own work, and that their photos could be used in advertising. As Mashable 's Chris Taylor put it, the TOS as they stood early this week basically " signed your life away ." Over the course of the week, we saw new privacy settings for Instagram users revealed, officially commented upon (while remaining uncha… Continue reading.. Read more »

2012′s Biggest Winners and Losers

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It’s been the most manic of years, with extreme highs and heart-breaking lows. Ultimately, we all have our good times and our bad. With that in mind, I hope we can cheer 2012’s winners and empathize with the year’s losers. More About: apple , Facebook , features , Google , instagram , microsoft , op-ed , space , Year End 2012 Read more »

Why xkcd Is Wrong About Instagram

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First, let me state for the record: There will always be a special place in my heart for xkcd . Randall Munroe 's webcomic has been a reliable source of amusement and enlightenment since it began in 2005. That former NASA robot programmer and his stick-figure 'toons have choked me up , made my jaw drop , and soothed my fears with science . But sometimes, just sometimes, Munroe gets things profoundly wrong. That's the case with his latest strip, an analogy that's supposed to take Instagram's side -- a side even Instagram itself isn't taking any more -- in its terms-of-service kerfuffle. And before you say "dude, it's just a webcomic," consider that this particular web… Continue reading.. Read more »

Instagram on iPhone Gets a Fresh Filter, Facebook Login, Apology

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Kevin Systrom has had quite the busy week. Fresh from nixing his revamped terms of service that caused such a stir on Tuesday -- and doing a 180-degree turn on those terms of service Thursday -- the Instagram co-founder has launched a significant update to his iPhone app. The update adds a brand-new photo filter, "Mayfair", which brings the app's total number of filters up to 20. Its previous update, just 10 days ago, also added a new filter, "Willow" . This is a veritable flurry of new filters by Instagram's standards; prior to Willow, the app hadn't added any new filters since September 2011. Here's Mayfair: Also in this update comes the ability to log in to Instagram via F… Continue reading... More About: instagram Read more »