Instacash

Way back in 2009, a professional photographer called Chase Jarvis published a book titled “The best camera is the one that’s with you”. There are many books available that are full of interesting and artistic photos; but this one differentiated itself by containing only photos that were taken by a phone; and damn good they were too.

Mr. Jarvis could have also called the book “It doesn’t matter what camera you have, it’s the photographer that makes the difference”; but maybe that would not have sold as many copies.

Back to the present and the world has adopted the Jarvis mantra. Flickr is one of the biggest photo hosting sites with more than six billion photos; and the most popular camera on Flickr is the iPhone. Point and shoot camera sales are falling as people use their phones instead.

A phone may not have the greatest camera; but it’s there in your pocket and, once you have taken a shot; it’s a trivial thing to share it with the world. Especially if you use Instagram.

Started less than two years ago, Instagram attracted one hundred thousand users in the first week. By January 2012 there were fifteen million users and two weeks ago that figure had jumped to twenty seven million.

The appeal of Instagram lies not in the photo taking application itself. The options are rudimentary; a set of retro-filters and a couple of processing options; other apps offer more. But finish processing your photo, add a title and your creation is automatically added to the presumably massive database of Instagram photos.

When you start Instagram, the latest photos taken by those you follow are displayed; and if you hunt around a bit, there is some spectacular work to enjoy. Other photo apps, such as Hipstamatic, have embraced the Instagram buzz and allow you to push your photos onto the Instagram database. It’s Twitter for photos and a little bit of genius.

Unlike many of the other photo apps, Instagram is free; which had people wondering about their business model. There was no obvious way for them to make money, unless they started charging for their arty filters. But after the launch of their product, their CEO was quoted as saying “Filters are not the billion-dollar business, it’s photography. The next network is people interested in sharing life visually.”

Eerily prophetic Mr. CEO (who is about twelve years old and fresh out of college); because today it was announced that Facebook had bought Instagram for one billion dollars. ONE BILLION DOLLARS, for a fifteen month old company with zero income. The CEO will pocket 400 million, and the extremely fortunate thirteen full-time employees will share 100 million.

Much debate on the wide wide world of web as to how Instagram could possibly be worth that much. That’s not the point. Instagram had the potential to become a threat to Facebook’s photo sharing and a billion is probably a small price to pay to own that threat.

So now I am waiting for The Son to invent the next big thing and be bought out after fifteen months for a similar sum. Cue that GT40 he has always promised me.

Comments 🔗

2012-04-10 | TheSon says

Behold the Dot-Com-Bubble-Two-Point-Oh.

2012-04-10 | Jock says

If you could ´tag´ the beautiful ladies of Thailand and have a website that showed their current GPS co-ordinates you´ld probably have the best dating site in the world. Now where´s that billion dollars.

2012-04-10 | Chang Noi says

A black box is a black box but with a tiny hole in it is is called a camera. It the person holding that black box with a tiny hole (and his/hers interaction with the outside world) that makes the photo. The rest of techenic is just a transport medium to get the person holding the black box with tiny hole to place where he/she can make that perfect photo.

I just did ride back from Udon to Khon Kaen and bloody hell what are you going to do with a GT40 in Thailand?

2012-04-10 | Galumay says

I never bothered with Instigram, couldnt see the point when there were perfectly good existing twitter photo services. Glad I didnt now that it has been taken over by FB, saves me from cancelling my account!

2012-04-11 | Grant says

By heck Chang Noi, that’s pretty deep stuff, I prefer a camera that doesn’t make me think! Bloody hell what is he going to do with a GT40 in Thailand? He’s going to park it in his condo’s basement carpark and blow raspberries at the chap with the two Lambos on the basis that Lambos are pretend Ferraris and Ferraris are pretend GT40s…

2012-04-11 | Spike says

The conversation with the son was along the lines of: Me: When you are obscenely rich, can I have a GT40? The Son: (reluctantly) OK. The reality is that I would also need a small mansion in the UK countryside with garaging and staff. We’ll worry about such details when he is wealthy.

2012-04-11 | Grant says

The Son is wise to be reluctant and clearly knows you well…

2012-04-11 | Lloyd says

Social Networking Start-ups (SNS) are Americas new CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligation).

A quick comparison: Underlying Assets: CDO - Risky mortgage values vs SNS - Risky user statistics Primary Income stream: CDO - Interest from risky mortgage repayments vs Fees from risky advertising rates. Primary Risk variable: CDO - Number of bad loans to good vs SNS - Number of user who don’t click on ads to those who do. Valuation justification variable: CDO - Real estate always goes up in value vs SNS – New user numbers always go up.

TheSon summed it up perfectly!

2012-04-11 | BIGGRTIGGR says

I already have the next killer app under development…………….. don’t care how much money you offer, I’m keeping it to myself……………… no, no……….. its no good making silly offers………… I cannot be bought

2012-04-12 | TheSon says

No reluctance here. If I am that rich we can get matching pairs and race them at Silverstone. Or I might still get my Exige (V6 SC, orange and black)

2012-04-12 | TheSon says

If Thai ladies use Foursquare (or a Thai equiv) and Facebook then you could knock something up (and I don’t mean the ladies) pretty easily. Like these guys did: http://www.techgeekandmore.com/tag/girls-near-me-app/

2012-04-12 | Spike says

Or perhaps matching Exiges as well? This is good news and I hope to hear from you soon.

2012-04-12 | Spike says

Plus in Instagram’s case, the primary income stream is nothing at all from anywhere.

2012-04-12 | Spike says

$10 and a day-old cupcake?