Covered in Snapchat with a side of…Snapchat. The drips from stalactites covering the cavernous ceilings of the Instagram Idea Chamber seemed heavier than normal while an amber glow from the flames and embers of burning bodies crawled up the walls. “Do you think people would use Face Filters?” Lightning crashed down and a thunderous roar came pouring from the souls being sucked into a giant fabulously colored, but minimally designed, camera sitting in the center of twelve baby seal carcuses being used as a confrence table. “We shall call it our NEW idea!” A table full of orange skinned men resembling tall Umpa Lumpas with golden blonde hair wrapped around like a pterodactyl nest in a tornado laugh hysterically as a small, lost soul in the background boosts another post. They’re just blatantly telling you they ripped it off now with Instagram’s VP of Product Kevin Weil at TechCrunch Disrupt NY where he pretty much flat out said they would be dumb sons of bitches if they DIDN’T copy the Snapchat model. He’s also using diabolical double talk by calling it a “format” opposed to a platform model or app structure then used a feeble comparison to Dreamworks and Pixar to validate their skeevy shit. Josh Constine recently had an interview “Pixar was the first to do computer animated films but I think we’re all better because of folks like Dreamworks that are also bringing great films.” Well here’s a quote from Glen Keane, an animator for Disney known for tiny films such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, and Aladdin that perfectly explain the difference you dumb ass: “There are differences between Pixar and Disney. If you reduced Pixar to a phrase it would be: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if?’ Like if a kid was looking at their toy: What if the toy could talk? All their films are like this. If you reduced the Disney films it would be: ‘Once upon a time…” See what’s happening here? These two brands use the same medium but create completely different outcomes. The storylines, character development beyond protagonist/antagonist, and the entire build structure are all separate entities in themselves. Instagram on the other hand took, without even caring about the content produced by users, these aspects of Snapchat: Story format Geo-filters Image effects (Text, drawing, and stickers) Story based ad sets Facial recognition filters And that’s only to name a few of the similarities. We should add location and Face Filters! Within the past few days, Instagram has added a few more features such as the facial recognition filters and the geo-search. Your Face Filters on Instagram are exactly what they sound like, a carbon copy of the facial filters on Snapchat. There may be some very subtle changes so they can point at them and say “See! It’s something new!” but you’re not an oblong piece of Jello rolling down a hill covered in dirt so you can see through that bull shit. The new geo-search implementation has its roots, and most of the branches, taken from Snapchat’s fairly new search option that lets you see snaps tagged in a certain location by filters or terms based on their text. The Instagram one however has the ability to show stories based on the location they were taken as opposed to using layered data. Instagram AND Facebook could really give two shits about what you really want Is Instagram growing at an alarming rate and super popular? Oh hell yeah, but that only feeds the fire to keep doing what they’re doing. Not innovating a goddamn thing. Also they’re padding their growth and active user numbers by the millions. This Business Insider article from two years ago states that ! Let’s take into consideration their growth and then jump a couple years ahead to today and you’re looking at 13% bots and nearly 50% inactive. upwards of 8% of the accounts are bot accounts and 30% are inactive That number should really look a lot lower with that data involved. If all those were active accounts, that’s close to 1.4 billion users and you wouldn't hear the fucking end of it with that metric. 700 million monthly active A majority of Instagram users just overwhelmingly want a chronological timeline back. People are sick of not seeing their friends and when they do, it’s a post from three weeks ago instead of the one they just posted a hour before. This whole jar of glitter they’re throwing all over the place is just because they can. Don’t think I’m trying to get a handy from Snapchat in the backseat of my car during the prom either because they’ve had plenty of time to address major issues in the past three years. They finally implemented a search option but it’s about the equivalent of shaving with a rock. Their UX is clunk at best with little to no development making it easier to navigate, use, or find features. If they were worried about growth a couple years ago, they would have made it like one of those giant TV remotes for your great grandad that look like a surfboard with colored buttons. Facebook and Instagram took a platform, and let's not call it what it isn't, and put it into a user-friendly atmosphere with easily accessible options. Do you know what happens when you “create” a product that makes everyone feel included instead of just hanging on to a certain demographic? Instagram. Is it working? Oh shit yeah, it’s working.
