Since Instagram updated their terms of service there has been a bit of a blind panic as to what this means. Some articles think this means Facebook want to sell your photos? And some give a more accurate and cool headed appraisal. Here’s my take on it..

Note: ultimately though there should be no mad panic about this, Instagram is a free service and, like Twitter, we are living in the shadow of a volcano. The direction of the service lives and dies at the whim of its privately owned masters; another reason why we should pay for software.

Update: after a day of hysterical and inaccurate reporting, Instagram decided to release a post explaining what they meant; i.e. that they do NOT want to sell your photos. Quelle surprise. 

My take on it…

So, I don’t think Facebook are looking to make a mint out of my pictures of rusty sheds (as amazing as they are). An issue with this approach is that it would annoy the users; FB aren’t stupid, they know where the money is.

No, I think these terms of services changes will have simpler ramifications.

Advertising

Elin is one of my FAVE Instagrammers, she takes amazing photos and I was lucky to meet up with her and her husband in Barcelona earlier this year.

She has 20K followers (I remember when it was less than 1k) and it’s always a treat to see her latest work.

Now, if by “selling our photos” the terms mean that Facebook are selling the rights to display an ad on that photo within the app and on the web then I think it all makes a lot more sense.

Yes the ad needs to be targeted, relevant & discrete. But, this is not the same as saying that Facebook are looking to sell her prints.

One of Elin’s shots (see lots of feedback/interaction)

So perhaps the big deal is more about how advertisers can get involved in this conversation?

What would they advertise on Elin’s feed? I dunno, I’d need to think about it but perhaps targeting travellers looking to come to Norway? She sure makes the place look pretty.

Anyway, that’s my 2p. No need to panic yet.

Joel

P.s. some more examples

@whholland – artist – 6K followers

@JamieOliver – 7445K followers!

As some of you know, I’m a big user of the iphone photo app which just been sold to Facebook for  $1B. I’ve been using the service since just after it launched and, along the way, I’ve stumbled across some good Instagram habits. However, in this post I thought I’d let you know about some of the image editing apps I use.

Continue reading →