I've held an opinion for a while that a large proportion of people working in social media had sand kicked in their faces at school. Technology has always been 'nerdy' and there is a revelling in the outsider term 'geek.' Naturally, social media in its infant years attracted the types who worked their way up from Star Wars figures through to circuit boards.
Woe betide anyone that leaves the geek crowd and gets accepted by the in crowd. Backs will be turned.
Like Instagram. They had the audacity to take $1bn off Facebook. They have "sold out." People get fucked off and talk of betrayal. The issue seems to be that:
a) They took money off the big enemy, Facebook.
b) That Instagram made the user feel special and important, and now they don't.
I would suggest the following.
1. People come up with ideas and go to work to try and make money. That includes the founders of Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and whatever a couple of people in San Francisco are working on right now, that we'll fall in love with later this year or early next.
2. People with relaxed dress codes, white teeth, and nice smiles from California, are adept at making geeks feel special. Like the Instagram "guys" pictured. Wouldn't you just love to have a Diet Coke with them? They give them things to play with. Coax personal information out of them to make money, and then persuade them to promote the whole process.
3. If someone makes $1bn out of something like nice pictures of babies, cats and food - rather than oil or guns, then that's a good thing.
4. If you are uncomfortable with Instagram making money in the social media industry, stop doing it yourself. Stop walking into publications and/or businesses asking for much smaller amounts of money to advise on how to use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc...to make money.
5. If you don't like Facebook, delete your account.
Congratulations to Instagram. I love your product, I love your work, and I'm glad you're making money. As Paul Carr, said "They didn't sell out, they just sold. They're a company, not the fucking Rolling Stones."
The same old argument used to be applied against "indie" bands who "sold out" by signing to a major and actually selling some records.
Lovely nostalgia trip there for the concept of selling "records".
Posted by: Jason | April 18, 2012 at 01:55 PM