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Facebook Releases Instagram Clone, Two Months After Acquisition

Posted by timothy on from the a-billion-here-a-billion-there dept.

redletterdave writes "Six days after the company's IPO and two months after it acquired photo-sharing app company Instagram for $1 billion, Facebook debuted a photo app of its own on Thursday, called Facebook Camera. The app is now available as a free download in the App Store, and it's currently only available for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Facebook Camera is set up very similarly to Instagram and includes most of the same features (including photo filters), but Dirk Stoop, Facebook's product manager for photos, said Facebook was working on this application long before the Instagram acquisition on April 9."

10 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft of social networking? by Pecisk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems that Facebook not only have taken Bill's money, but also followed his footsteps in dealing with competition.

    Actually I don't even care anymore. I don't use FB that frueqently, and slowly migrating away to G+ for geeky stuff. For rest I have email :)

    --
    user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
    1. Re:Microsoft of social networking? by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually they are turning into something akin to Microsoft, but not for the reasons you described. In the past(and to a lesser extent even today) Microsoft would often release several different, but completely incompatible, versions of the same thing. For instance 2 different DRM schemes, neither which was compatible with the other or even many of Microsofts own products for that matter. At one point they had THREE mobile operating systems on the market, all incompatible with the others software. This is not a recipe for success, and Microsofts slow, painful, but inexorable decline proves it.

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      Monstar L
  2. No wonder shares are dropping by dejanc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just how bubbly was it for Facebook to spend $1 billion on Instagram? Whether they wanted to destroy competition or whatever they wanted to do, this just makes no sense at all. I am sure people at Facebook know stuff that the general public doesn't, but this just seems like a ridiculous way to do business.

    1. Re:No wonder shares are dropping by Theophany · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, which is weird because getting served with a class action lawsuit and an SEC investigation days after your IPO generally points to a company worth handing your money over to.

      The company, by its own admission, is not convinced that they can monetise the mobile user experience, so for them to be wasting time, money and resources on flash in the pan shite like Instagram points to a company that isn't worth the paper its shares are printed on.

    2. Re:No wonder shares are dropping by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just ask anybody who made a ton of money off of credit default swaps in 2007 - paper is worth whatever you can get somebody else to pay for it. I'd say that 80% of the "value" of the stock in most trendy companies is based on hype, and you can make a lot of money off of that hype if you're an insider.

      If you come out with a new laptop everybody yawns. If you come out with a new tablet people invest money. If you come out with a new pink sleeve for an iPad your stock will soar. Investors are like a big stampede, and if you wave a red flag in the direction they're all running in you'll get lots of money.

      The thing is, it doesn't matter how many people are screaming about how great an investment CDS's, or tulips, or whatever is. Eventually you run out of new money, and the whole thing has to stand on whatever real-world earnings it can find. If those aren't there, then the whole situation gets ugly fast, and everybody is screaming for a bailout because "nobody could have seen this coming."

      I think K summed it up fairly well - a person is intelligent, but people are dumb.

    3. Re:No wonder shares are dropping by ericloewe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's absurd. While I have never (and am not planning to) used Instagram, I find the whole concept redundant, especially because if you must absolutely share your pictures, any decent smartphone OS will do that automatically, or at least with minimal fuss.

      This reminds me of the .com bubble - worthless companies with no real products (social networking is not a tangible product capable of surviving something big) having their value inflated to absurd levels, with billion dollar transactions being thrown around.

  3. Stick a fork in it by arcite · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This Social network fad is done. Yoked of innovation, on the path to mediocrity and disdain.

    1. Re:Stick a fork in it by gatzke · · Score: 1, Interesting

      My FB feed seems to be going that way. I don't know if people are dropping it, friends are blocking me, I am just losing interest, or FB is editing posts out with some algorithm. It is just not that interesting anymore.

      Email took off and stayed established because it was an open interface and anyone could set up a server.

      IM did well, but there were issues on the server side. At least you could write your own client. Later clients would handle a variety of servers.

      I think twitter clients are fairly open, but you are still stuck with a limited server.

      Where is social media going? G+ is a ghostland. I think twitter is too rapid/technically limited for a lot of people. There has to be a way to get decent interoperability for folks.

    2. Re:Stick a fork in it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      facebook lost a lot of value to many people when adults and teens started joining. facebook has its roots in the college culture and was at its most powerful when the majority of users were college users and there was a "2 networks policy" and your college email needed to be verified when you joined. i loved reading posts like "man you were so wasted last night, wtf happened when u left the bar?" or "what the hell was that in math 235 today?", it was such a cool way to meet new people, and the atmosphere was so dynamic and personal because there was a chance you would meet these people in real life, not static and impersonal like it is now, dealing with randoms who arent even on the same continent as you and who you dont care about. now the website unites people only by marketing, as if me and some other person "share a relationship" because we "like the same product".

      posting on someones wall was on par with sms in terms of speed because everyone was checking. and even if you never spoke to that person again, the interaction was worth it. and i havent even started talked about the pictures! oh man those were some memories. facebook really improved my college experience overall and im glad it existed then, it was an invaluable tool.

      now there are no networks, no personal experience, and there are 40 year old moms bitching about their "privacy online" and "can i hide my age?". college users are "just another demographc", a small signal within massive massive noise. it expanded and expanded, now its too generalized and bland, appeasing the lowest denominator rather than a specific demographic. all the while marketing wins.

  4. Visionary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm sorry, but this just shows how fast FB is going to tank. A billion dollars for something that they were already developing.......clever. Obviously someone felt that this was a threat to the "release" of their own version, planned right after IPO (coincidence.....lol). So there ya have it, now we'll see if investors catch on, that FB is being managed like a circus.