Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram reminds me of Google’s acquisition of YouTube — buying a whole different kind of engagement and interaction medium from their core offering. Google had failed to make an impact in online video.
Facebook’s mobile-social photo offerings are pretty weak. If Facebook does indeed leave it alone, I am pretty sure Instagram can continue to grow without worrying about building a business model for now. And that might be a good recourse for the small start-up.
Since acquiring YouTube, how has Google made YouTube better? The best quality videos are on Vimeo. The funniest are usually on Funny or Die. And unless I am mistaken neither were major players in the video space when Google purchased YouTube back in 2006.
Better Google and YouTube than Yahoo and Flickr.
We can only hope and pray nothing much changes and if change occurs it is for the better of the users.
As Ben Brooks asked, how did Google buying YouTube make the latter better? (Ditto Yahoo and Flickr.) Worse, since Google’s acquisition of YouTube, the experience and community there have gotten worse, and competitors have risen to stake out core ground in online video – beautiful videos are on Vimeo, funny videos are on Funny or Die, etc. The YouTube UX is so bad that a site like Devour or QuietTube can exist and thrive, solely by improving that UX!
Plus, Google still isn’t making significant money from it. Facebook better hope it’s Instagram acquisition is NOTHING like Google’s YouTube deal.