Pictures don't lack demographic targeting. You can make a lot of demographic assumptions from the content inside of a picture.
Example: facial recognition says that this blob with eyes in the photo is a child. Flag may have signed up Babies R Us as an advertiser. Based on the notion that it's a baby on the front of the photo the back as should be for formula, college funds, or diapers.
The tricky part is building up the tooling to automate that process. But hey, most of that exists in the wild already.
If Antenna Gate served as a template for how they could respond, the Jobsian answer would be one of: "upgrade to a larger phone", "use iCloud", or "don't take so many photos".
Seems logical to partner with a physical event or space, because it helps to provide some of that social proof that people often crave to use something.
I think of it like a restaurant. You're probably going to eat at the restaurant that is busy, not the one that is empty.
The market problem is a very real reality. Popcorn is pretty simple, you need to invite you friends - but do you have to do that for every area to unlock that area?
We've been working on the same problem for a few months now but haven't quick cracked the market issue. Our app, racut, has a similar feature called Shout where you can say something and it appears over a 6 mile radius.
In addition to Shout you can also start a private conversation, or have a group conversation outside of the Shout stream.
"Instagram’s plan from the beginning has been to exploit that conceptual slippage between content and advertising in a powerful new way, because it is the social network with the greatest claim to a foundation of genuine emotion. Instagram has become what it is because people care about it and what they put on it in a way that isn’t true of Twitter or Facebook—and which is precisely why Facebook bought it."
Interesting statement, because while a picture is worth a thousands words, it's usually some lame brain comment in text that get's people the most worked up. For some reason text has this power. I can't remember the last time I got pissed off at a photograph. I'm sure naked pictures of your wife would constitute a scenario where you were to get pissed off.
Regardless, ads were a comin'. Will be interesting to see if it plays out differently than other networks. If you already follow American Airlines in your feed, why would AA pay extra to advertise to you?
The author asks whether legacy is better measured by tangible accomplishment or lasting influence?
IMO one large tangible accomplishment can lead to lasting notoriety. If you stack multiple accomplishments together, a lasting influence starts to build.
If Steve Jobs only built the Apple II, then that would be it. But he was able to continuously string together a series of accomplishments (even amongst some spectacular failures).
#1 People still install toolbars, that's crazy to me.
#2 Google has so many popular products (search, gmail, youtube, maps) that it makes sense that they're that big. It's equivalent to a person having a bank account with $1bil in it. Just leaving that money in the account and raking interest, you just continue to get bigger by being. In google's case, there isn't strong enough competition to stop them from "being" and gaining more share based on their prior efforts.
#3 Could a new US based search engine compete with Google? Or are they just that big that the task is a fool's errand?
This is where Dr. Evil's colleagues snicker and he counters his demands with "100 BILLION Dollars", right?
Seems a bit much to have people set their own salary. What happens if you have an engineer who decides their worth $190k when in reality they're worth $100k at best?
I prefer the idea of providing other benefits like flexibility to work from anywhere and a sane vacation policy (take as much or as little as you want, but make sure your shit gets done).
Example: facial recognition says that this blob with eyes in the photo is a child. Flag may have signed up Babies R Us as an advertiser. Based on the notion that it's a baby on the front of the photo the back as should be for formula, college funds, or diapers.
The tricky part is building up the tooling to automate that process. But hey, most of that exists in the wild already.