If we were to go only by comments on posts about Facebook on various publications, we would think that Facebook was probably thinking of taking over the world while all we can do is watch and wait.
Indeed, after the Instagram deal, majority of the comments were about either:
1. How this is the end of Instagram
2. How this is the end of Facebook
3. How Facebook will kill Instagram
4. How Facebook overpaid
5. How Facebook could have just downloaded Instagram for free from the app store (this joke needs to die, seriously)
While a small proportion talked about how this could actually be a good thing.
In addition to the aforementioned rage, there is generally quite a bit of ”Kolaveri” for Facebook. In particular, over three points: how it doesn”t innovate, how it sells our information to big bad corporates and how it”s gotten boring.
I”m sorry, but I beg to differ. I do have a healthy sense of skepticism, but I would like to give Facebook and Instagram a shot here. Why the presumption that such big-ticket purchases are going to only spell doom? Zuckerberg may have his faults, but one cannot accuse him of not being a master strategist. He wouldn”t pay double the week-old valuation of Instagram if he wanted to kill it. He could have just bought the talent (12 strong) from the company, bought out patents and developed his own photo-sharing platform on mobile. Sure, it might have ended up being buggy, but with sheer numbers (800 million vs Instagram”s 40 million), it would have acquired the most important thing – users. This was ironically clear when Instagram itself when it came to Android, knocking off alternative apps like Photofunia.
Oh, no. Zuck sees something more than 40 million users and some fancy filters here. I don”t know what he has up his sleeve (if I did, I”d be running my own social network, not sitting here writing blogs). But I am willing to bet he has plans, and big ones. And his investment of $1billion (which is pittance, by the way, given what the Facebook IPO will bring in) will pay off, big big time.
But moving away from the Instagram issue itself, why IS there such raging anger against the world”s largest social networking site? Is it just a case of trying to bring down the big bad company? It”s fashionable to trash companies once they”re out of the lovable zone of being an underdog, after all.
Let”s look at the typical cribbing points.
1. Selling info to corporates: Let me put it this way. Facebook is free. Who”s going to pay for server space for hosting thousands of photos and status updates? Has to be someone. And who”s going to pay for the benefit of being socially connected? Someone does. Noone will want to ”upgrade” to a paid, ad-free version of Facebook. So there”s only one way out, and it”s a brilliant business model – sell your personal information to people who can target their ads to you. Now before you outrage, read that sentence again. What exactly is so bad about it? The ”personal information” being sold is not embarrassing diary entries or pictures in compromising positions, but basic things like age and interests. Heck, I would WANT Facebook to know that so it could target me ads for guitars and comics rather than make-up and automobiles. What would Facebook want your embarrassing deep dark secrets for anyway? Zuck definitely doesn”t have time, and I”m willing to bet that people don”t sit and read your direct messages and chuckle about them in Facebook server rooms (or for that matter, in GMail server rooms). Have a little faith, limit what you”re sharing on social media and remember, unless you pay for it, you have no right to crib about it.
2. Boring: Facebook is not boring. Facebook isn”t even exciting. What IS boring / exciting is the users that make it. So if your feed puts your to sleep (“YAWN! So many people getting married!” or “YECH! Fed up, everyone is taking pics of cats with their new DSLRs”) then it”s not Facebook”s produce team that is at fault. Some people need to make new friends or get newer interests. Blaming Facebook for ”boring” content is like blaming paper for having boring stuff written on it.
Bottom line – Facebook has innovated superbly over the last few years to be part of our lives, so well integrated. It”s not going anywhere, and I”d definitely like to see it give its acquisitions a shot before passing a judgement about whether it is evil / doomed.
I don”t think anything sums this up better than the fact that most of the conversations predicting Facebook”s death happen on… yes, Facebook itself.