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Another Facebook Competitor Bites The Dust? Instagram vs. Camera

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Credit: Facebook.com

Today’s news is somewhat disturbing for Instagram lovers such as me and several tens of thousands of others who have loved the app for its simplicity and ability to snap a photo on the run via iPhone and upload while also sharing with connections on Twitter and Facebook in addition to the Instagram stream.

Facebook was apparently already under development with its new Camera photo sharing mobile app, set for launch later today, when it agreed to acquire Instagram for $300 million in cash and 23 million shares (that’s $1 billion). That private bedroom deal made CEO to CEO was quick, quiet and involved few others. It made Instagram founders gazillionaires, too.

Facebook promised the backlashing Instagram fans that it would allow Instagram to stay independent. It is still promising that today; however, one can only imagine the lure by Facebook to win over Instagrammers to Camera.

Looking at the flipside of this issue, hail to Facebook. Here’s what it did well:

1. Directly responded to analysts during its roadshow pre-IPO who said there is no Facebook mobile strategy. (This has plagued Facebook for months, and it was a major risk for the company to go IPO without a solid solution in place.)

2. Literally erased a key competitor from the space with the flip of a button and a few hundred million dollars. No lengthy boardroom chats and discussions, no public back and forth on purchase price and takeover threats, and no grandstanding. Just an honest-to-goodness-back-of-the-envelope acquisition between two wet-behind-the-ears CEOs (well each is under 35-years-old, right)?

3. Proved to new shareholders it means business in creating a solid foundation for success into the future. I’m not sure, however, exactly where monetization of Camera plays out; Instagram is free.

Listen a minute. I can hear the Instagram backlash already this morning as folks in all the time zones west of Indiana awake with their morning coffee. I’ll be signing on to Camera this afternoon when it comes online; I want to be one of the early adopters so I can write again about how well Facebook launches a brand new app to whet the whistle of we would-be professional photographers.

Should You Delete Social Media Profiles?

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A man I respect as a peer and pal is a social media leader and A(mazing) lister who will deny that last descriptor as a slight, but he carries enough clout that he has deleted his and also his Google+ profile.

His hit my in box over the weekend, and I was fascinated with his announcement that he had deleted his and was lamenting that Google required him to re-up his profile IF he wanted to use .

So, I got to thinking about social media leaders who take proactive steps to change it up. Remember the leaders who deleted all their Twitter followers ? That was all the rage for awhile with everyone talking about what that meant, why they did it and what influence it had.

That said, I got to thinking about what it means to be in social media marketing.  Each of us engages with the next new channel. I kicked and screamed all the way to Pinterest to fall in love and then have that love wane to zero after the legal problems came to light. But, I didn’t delete my profile…yet.

is someone I fully consider a leader in this space. I feel as if I know him extremely well, yet we’ve never met IRL or via Skype. I need to change that up.  I remember when I started and I was in awe of his efforts with 12for12K.com.

And, we’ve f together, too. That makes us kindred . So, when I read yet again that Danny was justifying why he had deleted a profile after playing ball (he had met with some interesting obstacles and Wil E. Coyote shenanigans) I thought:

If you’re in social media, shouldn’t you have a Google+ profile? Then, I thought, Danny is now working for ; not driving his own company. Is that the reason he’s not as concerned with personal branding as before?

So as not to sideswipe Danny or speak on his behalf, I sent this post to him for his heads up in the hopes he would be able to shed some light on my curiosity. Let’s define what that curiosity means — it’s not gossip by any stretch; it’s learning.

Do I need to keep my Pinterest profile if I’m not going to be current or active? Do social media leaders have to engage on all the channels to show they know what’s hot? I seriously want to know the answers to these questions, and I’m hoping the king himself will help provide us with some insight…Danny?

(Thanks, Mr. Brown!) Danny Brown says:

“The way I look at it is this – does this platform really need to take up my time, and is it doing things at least in some right ways? When Klout first arrived on the scene, I was curious as I’m really interested in how messages are filtered through the channels, and what influence could mean for brands and business. Then I found out about their crappy privacy, their shady profile setting up and their inclusion of minors, and I deleted. It was simply a popularity tool as opposed to a true influence measure.

Now Google, with their Google+ platform, seems to want to follow the same path – force account creations, count “active users” as people who might click on G+ alerts in Gmail but never go through to the site, allow non-users to be emailed by their connections online to encourage sign-ups, etc. Its invasive marketing and so out of touch with Google’s lauded “don’t be evil” mantra. It may be a bit easier to take if the platform was good, but it’s such a stale experience compared to Twitter and Facebook (and, yes, you can say it’s down to the people you follow, but I followed some of the smartest folks around while their content was great, the user experience was still bland).

My time is very limited, due to professional and family commitments, so unless a platform stands out as being hugely effective, I won’t waste time on there. I’ve never felt the need to “build a personal brand,” as that always sounds forced and contrived. So not being on the “big platforms” doesn’t bother me too much. If I miss out, so be it – I’ll still prefer to be active on the platforms that matter to me, and for now that’s , Twitter and Facebook. Everything else is either a luxury I don’t need or a time suck that’s being hyped by those looking to push their own books, webinars and agendas.

My advice? Look at the platforms, evaluate your interaction and returns, and if they don’t seem to make sense, then spend your time where you’re more effective, both as a producer and a listener. That’s how you’ll get the results that matter.”

 

Facebook Owns Instagram: Will You Stay?

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Before I start reading everyone else’s blog (Danny Brown’s just arrived in the box) post about Instagram to sway my opinion, I’m going to just say right now in a timely way… this is all in a day’s work, right?

  • Companies buy competitors to enhance offerings
  • They buy sexy upstarts to be sexier themselves
  • They buy companies to add more customers
  • They buy companies to play in a sector they’re not
  • They buy companies just to recruit that company’s CEO (see below)
  • They buy companies that have NO revenue just because they can!

Today’s Wall Street Journal tells it like it is:

  • Instagram has ZERO, that’s a big, fat ZERO, revenue, yet it was bought for $1 billion in a CEO-to-CEO deal that did not cross the t’s or dot all the I’s.
  • Facebook says it will essentially leave Instagram independent to do what it does best (allow its 30 million users to snap images and post on various Interwebz simultaneously).
  • Facebook bought Gowalla only because it wanted that company’s CEO to come work for Facebook (did you know that?) and Gowalla ceased to exist last winter.
  • Facebook has not jumped on the mobile app bandwagon quickly enough; in fact, its ~380 million users aren’t loving or using Facebook on mobile the way Instragram users HAVE to use Instagram – it’s ONLY a mobile app.
  • Instagram users are nervous there will be charges for usage or ads that litter the landscape of the app or integration into Facebook that will forever alter the core application.

So, let me repeat something that still confounds me…Instagram has NO revenue, but it recently closed an angel investor deal just prior to its acquisition by Facebook. So, the little success story from two guys in a garage (well, really from Stanford), became a little darling much like the dot.com era where venture caps were throwing money at any dot.com that launched to see what stuck. We all know the end to that story.

So, did Facebook spend $1 billion (peanuts to them) to buy a company with zero revenue and 30 million users (many who’ve said they loved Instagram for its anti-Facebook orientation) who may drop off like flies or may not, to integrate into its own platform and ultimately knock down a potential competitor?

That’s a mouth full, for sure, and only time will tell.

I, for one, am staying with Instagram; I have never loved a mobile app so sweet, simple and launch-and-play as I have Instagram. But, let me state…after my beloved TweetDeck was taken over by Twitter and we users began to experience the pain and left in droves to HootSuite…I’m holding my breath.

Where will I go next if Facebook alters Instagram so drastically that we feel the difference? C’mon app developers, please launch the next big SnapIt, wouldja? (There, I just named your new mobile photo app, Ladies.)

And, on a final note…Instagram is FREE. It doesn’t cost $.99 to launch like many apps now do; why not? Isn’t that a paltry source of some revenue? About 30 million users at a buck each minus a cut to iTunes app store; well, that’s some source of income, right? What possesses app developers not to build in 99 cents out of the gate to at least cover some overhead?

So, what about you, Instagrammers? You comin’ or goin’?

Credit: Jayme Soulati via iPhone 4S to Instagram

 

Has The Pinterest Bubble Burst?

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Credit: Jayme Soulati

As soon as I heard about the copyright-pinning snafu from this highly popular new channel, I stopped pinning. As a professional who works with lawyers to protect intellectual property rights (which include all images), I have no desire to get caught up in a copyright mêlée.

I paid attention as the Pinterest founders hammered out their new strategy for pinners, and then yesterday, I just shook my head at the obvious lack of clarity about the entire platform.

The Wall Street Journal on March 27 ran a piece, “In Shift, Pinterest Says to Pin Your Own Stuff.” Indeed.

The beauty of Pinterest as a visually appealing channel has been the freedom to grab an image that resonates, create a board, and share with the world. And it cascades from there…I wonder if the pins I posted with bridges in the rain forest of Borneo came from National Geographic?

Could National Geographic file a lawsuit against every single pinner who posted an image without permission on their boards? Hmmm, I don’t think so, but, it’s not worth the aggravation.

So, in a nutshell, here’s the recap from yesterday’s story in the almighty Wall Street Journal:

  • Self-promotion is now the new normal on Pinterest. Do you recall at all when Pinterest informed companies they couldn’t promote themselves by pinning images of their own products? Guess that’s now a reversal, and companies are encouraged to pin away.

Outcome: Pinterest will become another advertising billboard and followers will likely yawn unless they’re already brand loyal.

  • The best way for us to avoid copyright conflict is to pin material we either create or have permission to use. Really? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sitting around all day creating cool photo-shopped images to share on my boards. Maybe the photos I took of my blooming spring flowers would make a nice Flowers In My Garden board, but who has the time to go to that trouble and for what gain? And, how does one go about getting permission to use an image…if you’ve ever attempted that, you know it’s a nightmare.

Outcome: Pinners’ excitement will wane with the new self-create images mantra and the necessity to get permission.

  • New “Pin Etiquette” rules and principles take effect April 6 and are designed to be simpler, encourage authenticity and invite long-term happiness at Pinterest.

Outcome: I am reasonably astute in legal matters as I manage all litigation for a client. That said, the new etiquette rules have been created to appease all legal teams and for Pinterest’s ultimate survival. What has in fact occurred is a dampening of enthusiasm for pinners to freely pin (with all due respect to the pin-ees) images that delight.

I don’t know about you, but I may withdraw completely from Pinterest to protect my intellectual property. And you?

 

 

 

 

Register for Social Customer Service and Chief Marketer Social Media Certificate Program

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Penton Education Services is hosting a social media certificate program with six hours of training, testing, roadmaps and expert sessions with an amazing line up of faculty who know what they’re talking about.  I can say that with aplomb because Jayme Soulati, that’s moi, has been invited to teach on social customer service, How To Create Savvy Customer Service Teams In The New (Social Media) Normal.

Because I didn’t like the line up, I created my own topic, because if you’ve been following me you know I’ve become something of a detractor when things in customer service go awry.

That got me thinking about what the problems are in this realm – the last bastion untapped by social media marketing. And what I saw on the ‘net was a ton of material devoted to the outside-in – how consumers engage with companies vs. the inside out.

That’s what I’m presenting on; the deck is done; the recording is scheduled this week; the 20-question quiz is complete; and, I need to write my roadmap for registrants’ next steps as well as provide my library of assets. Yes, this has been a ton of work. I’m hoping it’s going to be highly rewarding for anyone who registers, right here, right now!

If you register now, prior to April 12, 2012, you get six hours of instruction, testing, roadmaps and access to presenters. Each presenter will provide a resource library of their materials (books, blogs, studies, white papers, etc.) to provide further teachings.

Here’s the best news…pre-register now and you save $500! You get all of what I just said for only $195 through April 12, 2012 (that’s the official Charter Launch “Live Day”). On April 13, the four core sessions and two electives are priced at $695.

When you use this link, it goes directly to my page and you can register at the bottom.

The good news is this Chief Marketer Social Media Certificate Program is being hosted by Penton, a brand known for its expertise in vertical-market publishing. They’ve done a great job of selecting faculty and session topics for this course:

So, without further ado, head on over to Penton to my page and book yourself right quick to save $500 on what promises to be money well spent. Even if you’re an agency, independent contractor, small business trying to beef up a social engagement program or an established business already astute in social marketing, there’s a bunch to learn from this esteemed group of presenters.

I’m jazzed to be a part of it; hope to see you there!

ADDENDUM: Please use my code SMSOULATI to get the promo price through April 12! (If you’re registering after April 12, then ask me…I’ll try to work some magic for you, but no guarantees!