I am so not "getting" this Instagram thing / do you guys want to look at each others pictures?

yeah but they could start from that approach w/o dropping a billion dollars

There's no way facebook or anyone else would have to actually take down a system to transfer to a new one, though. Might be some hiccups across regions and some weirdness with notifications, but I doubt we'd tell the difference since that happens anyway.

I think for them to do it they would have had to create a separate facebook iphone photo app, then people would get confused

if you're talking about infrastructure (databases for account authentication, user profiles, image storage) then that is the same for mobile or web.

client/app/mobile web interface is entirely separate from that.

xp No, certainly, buying Instagram is more about buying the user base and the whole package. A team of good engineers could create their own Instagram, but no one is going to jump over to a duplicate product.

dayo, facebook has their own Messages app, though! I see no real issue with multiple facebook apps.

akm otm, although I think that facebook's website doesn't actually call their APIs, public or external, and that's one of their big issues.

or *internal* I mean. I think they really do have sloppy direct-at-data store calls.

edward III, do you use fb mobile through the app or via their web interface on the phone?

'facebook's website doesn't actually call their APIs'

their apis are awful actually. have you tried to use them? their documentation is a fucking nightmare, they depricate things all the time and don't really tell you; they introduced and then killed this fbml thing in like 2 years. now the only fb apps I ever had to use and/or build don't work. I hate dealing with it.

mh otm

'certainly, buying Instagram is more about buying the user base and the whole package.'

right. but its an exorbiant buy.

I work(ed) for KodakGallery until last week. We have a pretty cool event photo sharing app; plus a website and a whole product line. But we're tied to eastman kodak which means we're going down the toilet and up for sale. First bid? Shutterfly, who have worse products and a worse experience overall; but Shutterfuly ONLY wants to buy the membership base to cut down on their competitors and will kill the rest of the company. If they win the auction, they'll have gotten millions of users for 23 million. Bargain price. But compare that to this buy. 1 billion for a membership base? Really? FB is saying they will let instagram run as is and not interfere with it or force anything on the members; maybe because they would face a big backlash on it; but that is a LOT of money to buy something that you aren't going to 'do anything' to.

Yeah, I have no idea what the real goal is, and maybe there isn't a solid one. Zuckerberg seems kind of cool on the whole deal in media quotes, right? I kind of wonder if this was a consensus board pick or if there's something going on the business side of things.

Either that or they're real dicks and don't trust what their internal mobile app programmers say -- which may be the case, since at least one guy left because he was kind of bored -- and they're going to have some Instagram guys guide their mobile team.

Remember, you can have the best people working for you, but anyone you hire to give you direction will always be better. Or so management always seems to think.

well its a membership base and also a play to stop instagram from overtaking facebook

that to me seems to explain 90% of it

yeah. i mean i should be clear that $1 billion is ridiculous no matter which way you slice it unless instagram is just like an office filled with $2 billion and the 11 employees are all security guards or something

idk, that might be the lowest amount of money that facebook considers pulling out their pocketbook for

that's a good point, maybe zuckerberg just forgot all digits smaller than a billion

biking in to work today i really wished i had gotten a job in palo alto instead of going to grad school

in other words i am so not 'getting' this instagram thing

it's ok, I witnessed my high school friend who founded p1nterest getting grief from his family for not being a doctor a few months ago

lol @ "fbml". worst company

fbml wasn't a horrible idea but kind of betrays the fact they're still in a php or even coldfusion mentality

like seriously, guys, they created a php compiler and optimizer and shit, I think they're mentally ill

oh, sorry, it's a converter that changes php to c++ and it's called "hiphop"

shoot me

how well did you know mr.p1nt3r3st mh?

We both did science fair, went to the same magnet school for AP classes and the like, had a computer science class together. Sadly I knew only a bit about said website when he was in town and he was like "man, I don't know anyone else here and don't want to talk to the other speakers all day, let's chill over lunch"

so, not that well, but enough to shoot the shit I guess

I'm not even sure I believe this 100% but a lazy thought is that Facebook's brand has never been about cutting-edge technology, at least compared to Google...it was initially about game-changing usability and now it's really just about the fact that everyone you know is there. Most of their attempts to expand the feature set have met opposition or apathy. I know they do have some really clever people working for them and obv they have to juggle massive amounts of real-time data but idk I feel the tech aspects are probably not beyond the reach of a potential competitor.

that will probably always be the case with social networks tho

like facebook's goal is gonna be to institutionalize itself as much as possible but in the longer term it's still gonna be easier for 100m people to switch to new networks

the underlying technology has nothing to do w/this at all, fackbook has tons of dudes and tons of money they can code the shit out of whatever they want, of course there will always haxors sniping at their php or w/e online, they are im sure crying themselves to sleep on pillows stuffed w/million dollar bills

feel like 'facebook is about photos' or 'what people use facebook for is essentially photos' is wrong

oh, sorry, it's a converter that changes php to c++ and it's called "hiphop"

shoot me

hahaha, FB is the new AOL!

otoh i just looked at path (which i had never heard of) (lol old) and closed the website in rage because my options were 'watch the demo' and 'watch the trailer', so maybe i just don't understand that everyone in my generation is illiterate

its a simplification but it has been repeatedly proved that the thing people use facebook for the most is photos

if i go on facebook and send one important message and click through a gallery of 100 photos because i am bored i do not think that means i am getting 100x as much use out of photos

its a simplification but it has been repeatedly proved that the thing people use facebook for the most is photos

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:35 AM

its even implied in the name "facebook"

there are lots of other ways to send one important message

1 weird tip

and that totally doesnt describe most Facebook usage, I cant recall the last time I went on there to do something important, it's all abt dicking around

my dicking around is of vital importance tbf

I think the main way to make inroads on facebook is via the young (probably college age and younger) who will want something where NOT everyone is on it. Was it not initially the air of exclusivity that helped to launch facebook as a brand? Of course now it's morphed into something totally different, and it is institutionalized, in fact it's almost become a kind of utility -- a combination universal phone book, universal yearbook, universal greeting card conduit, e-mail system, chat system, photo album, etc. You don't do it because it's cool anymore, you do it because it's useful. But some college kid will come up with something that's appealing to young people and revolting or bewildering or just unavailable to older people and that will gradually eat into fb, eventually. It probably won't be just an edgier fb, it will be something paradigmatically different.

well myspace actually had younger users, fb had elitism

they pretty much opened up the site college by college going by the us news rankings

if i go on facebook and send one important message and click through a gallery of 100 photos because i am bored i do not think that means i am getting 100x as much use out of photos

― thomp, Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:37 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, YOU arent, but facebook is

this is already happening, thus purchasing instagram, theyd buy twitter in a second if they could too xp hurting

lol google+

I use facebook so I know it's not cool

if i go on facebook and send one important message and click through a gallery of 100 photos because i am bored i do not think that means i am getting 100x as much use out of photos

― thomp, Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:37 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, YOU arent, but facebook is

― max, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 15:43 (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ads refresh three times when i write that message and not at all when i click through the photos iirc

k so theyre getting 30x as much use out of photos

ime 'important messages' are increasingly taking the form of fb photos, i.e. sonograms

i have plenty of feelings about this phenomenon (not good) but that's neither here nor there