It has been five years since Facebook got the bargain of the century — Instagram for roughly $750 million. The mobile photo sharing service at that time had mere 35 million monthly active users. It has since added more than 600 million monthly active users. In comparison, Facebook added over 800 million monthly active users. Instagram has changed since — it has shamelessly imitated SnapChat and added many features that have kept the service fresh and interesting to its ever-increasing number of users. I look at Instagram and the growth of mobile photo sharing and wonder if Twitter really blew an opportunity. Instead of trying to do too many things, it should have made photo-sharing on Twitter better, simpler and more fun. I don’t think it is too late — but in case of Twitter, everything moves in mysterious ways. SnapChat, Instagram and Facebook will be part of my forthcoming book, The Third Eye Era.
