Geek

So it’s been all over the news outlets since yesterday afternoon, Facebook bought the photo sharing app Instagram for ONE BILLION dollars. Notice I did not say the Instagram “website”. Instagram has relatively little presence on the web; the only way to share photos is via the Instagram app on an iPhone and since last week, an Android device. Instagram had no revenue stream. Users don’t pay to use the service, ads do not appear in the apps. Users simply snap a photo or choose a photo that’s already on their phone, Instagram crops it to a square size, users can apply an artsy or nifty filter if they want and then they post their photo to the Instagram service. Anyone can comment on it or indicate that they like the photo. Users can include hashtag keywords (#keyword) for searching purposes. Instagram also gives the user the option of sending the photo to other services such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

The creator of Instagram had no formal programming training; he’s a marketer that figured out how to build the apps during his off hours. The app has been a hit with iPhone users since it’s inception. I have a ton of photos on their myself.

No revenue stream + very successful app with a large userbase = one billion dollars. It’s 21st century economics! It kind of reminds me of the dot com bubble of the late 90s.

Now first of all, I have to congratulate the folks behind Instagram for making such a fantastic deal. Selling something that was created in this fashion for one billion dollars is a transaction for the history books. Well done.

The folks at Facebook say that they’re going to keep the app separate from Facebook and let it continue to do its thing. However, I have a hunch that there will be some serious data mining going on in regards to the user base; that’s how the folks at Facebook make money, data mining user activities for advertising purposes. Targeted advertising is all the rage and to recoup one BILLION dollars and make a profit one has to do a lot of targeted advertising.

Can’t say that I’m a fan of the motivation, but I am impressed by the transaction. The Facebook acquisition of Instagram will probably affect my use of Instagram. I get creeped out when Facebook offers to sell me a product based on the fact that I searched for a similar product well outside the confines of the Facebook garden. I don’t mind it as much from Google because Google is in the search business and 98% of the time, I’m using Google to search for something on the internet. It makes sense to me when Google offers me a product similar to something I was looking for because I used their product to do my search. But I have never searched for mustache wax on Facebook, yet Zuck and friends are now suggesting to me (through advertising) mustache wax, a bikini wax, shaving soap and a free skin care consultation at a high end department store. With all the photos I have taken over the years and shared on the Instagram, I’m expecting advertising suggestions for cat food, copper to make powerlines and a smattering of random products simply because of the random nature of my photos. I have to say, I’m not a fan.

I really liked Instagram and I have enjoyed chatting with folks on there and admiring the photography of others through the site. It’s kind of sad that I feel like I have to reevaluate my use of the service now because of the new overlords.

As I said on my Twitter feed this morning

Crossposted to techbear.net

A few years ago Earl bought me the first generation iPhone for Christmas. This was an absolutely delight for me for a number of reasons, the primary one being that the idea of having access to the internet in my pocket was sort of a geeky good time. I’d dial up the weather, look up things on Google just because I could and avoid the at-the-time trend of sending a text message by banging out letters on a 3×3 keypad. The original iPhone was my favorite of the iPhone designs because it had a solid, metal presence to it that made me make grunting noises like Tim Allen.

I upgraded to the iPhone 3G when I had the opportunity to do so, so I could do everything I was doing with my original iPhone, only faster. Admittedly, it did feel like a step backwards in the hardware department in that it didn’t feel quite as nice in my hand as I would have liked it to. That phone still lives today in the cubicle next to mine at work, because I sold it when I realized that the city I worked in did not have 3G service with AT&T. This was before Verizon offered the iPhone, so I switched to Verizon and got the original Droid.

I liked the feel of the Droid in my hand but the whole experience didn’t feel as polished. The Android OS felt unfinished and the camera did not take as high quality photos as my iPhone 3G. It was within the first week that I wished I could go back to AT&T and start using an iPhone again, but I couldn’t because of my new Verizon contract, so I stuck it out until that magical day one February when Verizon announced that they would be carrying the iPhone 4. I stayed up that night until I was able to order it and did so. I was so happy to be on the iPhone again.

Last spring I lost my mind for a little while and got bored with the iPhone and opted for an Android-based HTC Thunderbolt. That lasted a week. The phone rebooted spontaneously, usually while I was doing something, the battery barely made it until lunch on a full charge and I felt like I was talking on something the size of a phone book. Plus, I was really missing the quality of the photos taken with my iPhone 4; the Thunderbolt had more megapixels (8MP instead of 5) but the lenses weren’t as good and the quality of the photos suffered. And on Android (which still felt unpolished to me) I didn’t have a way to get to Instagram and I was missing Instagram.

I switched back to an iPhone 4 within a week and I haven’t looked back.

Yesterday, Instagram was opened up to Android users. From a social perspective (and when you think of the user as the advertising revenue product instead of a customer) this makes absolute sense. Folks on the Android platform can now share their photos on Instagram and interact in this formerly iPhone-only space. It’s a good way to share with more friends but the quality of the photos from the Android phones appears to be not as good, in my opinion. A couple of folks have posted comparison photos and the results are very apparent.

Compare these two photos from John Gruber.
iPhone 4S: http://instagr.am/p/I-fP3KFzZT/
Galaxy Nexus: http://instagr.am/p/I-fPpPFzZS/

My friend John Matthews is really good at iPhoneography. He is an iphoneography purist in that he takes all of his photos with an iPhone and his entire workflow takes place on his iPhone. That’s cool! In fact, that’s wicked cool! I guess I have come to think of Instagram as more of a place for folks that thought along these lines to share their photos. Yes, there is a huge social element to Instagram but to me it was a place where iPhone folks could share their photos using their favorite smartphone platform.

Plus, I have that whole Apple snob thing going on¹.

I keep reading stats about how the Android platform is the most prevalent of the smartphone platforms. My question is, if Android is bigger and better, why didn’t someone build their own Instagram-like ecosystem instead of clamoring to get onto the ecosystem already built for iPhone? Why didn’t someone innovate, establish an Android user base and then later open it up to iPhone users so they could sigh with “ok, we’ll let you in the party”.

As my interest in iPhoneography increases (especially with the nicer weather), I’m going to be on the lookout for a social networking site where likeminded photographers (amateur and professional) can share their photos without having to guess as to what type of phone was used and what kind of optics the camera had and the like. Does anyone have any suggestions?

¹ Yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm.

I am an avid listener of Sirius/XM’s POTUS (Politics of the United States) on channel 124. Listening to POTUS keeps me engaged with the affairs of the country during my daily commute and while there are times when I have had absolutely too much political news and I search for something else, most of the time I end up listening to POTUS. In the morning I listen to “The Morning Briefing”, I catch a few moments of “The Press Pool” at lunch time and on the drive home I listen to “Stand Up with Pete Dominick”. Interesting stuff.

One of the features of the program, The Blogcast with Pamela Kirkland, Pamela mentioned the “Million Mustache March” that took place in DC on Sunday. Please note that Sunday was the first of April. The “Million Mustache March” was a protest demanding tax breaks for the fuzzy faced, equality for all with facial hair. After the mention of the story, Morning Briefing host Tim Farley mentioned that it’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a president with a mustache. So I tweeted this¹:

Imagine my surprise when later in the program (around 0720 ET), Tim came out of a break mentioning the first tweet they had received of the day. And it was my tweet. He mentioned me by first and last name, kind of sarcastically mentioned that with all the problems in politics, this is what I was tweeting about (I was keeping within the spirit of the “Million Mustache March” but apparently couldn’t convey that in 140 characters or less) and then mentioned that I have a rather large, “handlebar like mustache” on my face, with something the size of a small country under my nose.

Honestly, I take that as a compliment. I love my large mustache and I have no plans on taming it or trimming it down. I’m just letting it grow and go where it wants to go.

The mention of it on Sirius/XM kind of gave me the jolt I needed to wake up for the day. So I thanked them with another tweet and went on with my commute.

Thanks, Sirius/XM POTUS 124! You made the small country under my nose ride along with the grin on my face.

¹ When I tweet during my commute, I am usually stopped at a stop sign or pulled over on the side of the road. Even in the small country under my nose, one has to act responsibly.

There’s a lot of negativity in my Facebook news feed (from others) today. Some people seem to be having a bad day, others are dealing with misconstrued gossip and yet others are having smack said about their family members.

What an abuse of technology.

Though I tend to tweet more than I FB (and I don’t G+ at all anymore), I still read Facebook on a regular basis, even if it’s just to catch up on birthdays and wish people good tidings on their day of celebration. Sometimes I write witty things here and there, other times I might post a few pictures of randomness. There are quite a few things about Facebook that make me insane, hence the reason that I’m not as invested in the platform as I used to be.

One of the things that absolutely amazes me about some folks on Facebook is how seriously they take things on there. Folks can post something absolutely random that sounds like it could be true and they take it as 100% accuracy and don’t bother to research to see if it’s really true or not. For example, I could go onto the Utica page and post something like “Olive Garden is coming to New Hartford! It’s moving into the old AT&T building on Commercial Drive” and probably within two days I’d read something about Olive Garden moving into the old AT&T building via Twitter or the Topix boards.

Ridiculous.

Why would Olive Garden move into the old AT&T building, especially since said building was vacated after an irate customer went in and shot some customer service reps because he was pissed about his account? And why would Olive Garden need a big tower in their parking lot anyways? And why would Olive Garden even move to Utica, New York, where good, traditional Italian restaurants are plentiful and the folks here don’t want an Italian restaurant that amounts to boil-in-a-bag.

I’m digressing.

My point is, like anything and everything on the Internet, you need to check and cross check the facts of anything you read, including the stuff on Facebook. It’s kind of like relying on one news source for your news; compare what you hear from Fox News with what you hear from MSNBC with you read in your local newspaper and there’s a better chance you’re going to get a better picture of what’s going on with whatever they’re all talking about. If you see something on Facebook about a family member or a friend that seems startling, do something crazy like pick up the phone and speak with that person to see if the facts are true or not. And for pity’s sake, don’t bring people you don’t know into the equation and start speculating or being rude or obnoxious just because Facebook has decided to show updates from people you don’t know on something that you might have an interest in.

The progression of technology seems to be fueling a regressing in common sense these days when we need more common sense than ever to keep track of it all. People need to remember how to think.

I’m trying out a new theme on the blog just to spruce things up a bit. I guess I’m doing a little spring housecleaning.

Ok, so I wrote two blog entries yesterday. In the entry titled “Resolution“, I mentioned that I was still not interested in the new iPad that was announced yesterday. Then, after the announcement of the new iPad that’s called ‘the new iPad’, I admitted that I wanted one.

Now I have mentioned that this blog, amongst other things, functions as an insight to the way I am in real life. While it is a controlled atmosphere of sorts, I still am pretty open with the way I function in the real world with my writings on this blog. What you see is what you get. And this flip flopping back and forth regarding the new iPad makes Mitt Romney look like he’s got his mind made up about everything.

How embarrassing.

This morning as I was driving into work, I went into daydream mode and hashed out what’s been floating around in my head for the past 24 hours or so and I came to the determination that in reality, the new iPad (which is called ‘the new iPad’), while very nice, makes me more ornery than anything. You see, there is nothing wrong with my first generation iPad. Nothing at all. When taken out of it’s case it’s still looks all shiny and new. I don’t have the need for a camera on my iPad and in the one instance that I saw a person using an iPad2 to take a photo I pointed at them and made a snorting noise that was meant to resemble mockery. The only reason that I would need the new iPad (which is cleverly called ‘the new iPad’) would be to run the new iPhoto app, because Apple released that yesterday and to run the new iPhoto app, you need a front-facing camera because apparently someone wants to watch you use the new iPhoto app.

I kind of find that weird.

I often talk about using older computers and gadgets and the like until you can’t squeeze any further porn productivity out of them. We shouldn’t fill landfills with electronics that still work when we’re not going to be around to deal with these landfills to begin with. That’s just silly. And quite frankly, it’s time for me to starting walking the walk instead of just talking the talk.

So now the ornery in me is turning into it’s own resolution. Write this down or take notes if you give a damn.

1. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro that is going to continue to be my laptop until it costs more to support it than buy a new one or I can’t use it anymore because it’s just not compatible with what I need to do on a laptop.
2. I am keeping my current iPhone 4 at least until I am eligible for an upgrade, which isn’t until February 2013. And I might keep the iPhone 4 around longer just to prove that I can.
3. I am going to use my current iPad in all it’s delicious glory until it’s impossible to get anything accomplished on it.

And to take this stubbornness one step further, for the vacation that we are about to embark on at 1600 EST today, I am taking ONLY my iPhone and my iPad and I am going to blog and share pictures using these outdated devices to prove to the world that it can be done no matter what Apple says. I love my Apple products and I absolutely believe that they have the best hardware out there, but I’m not going to upgrade just because they have decreed it to be so.

And that, gentle readers, is me not flip flopping on the issue anymore.

Note to my dear husband: feel free to print this blog entry out and shove it in my face the next time I mention buying something new just for the sake of buying a new Apple gadget. Gifts, however, are always welcomed.

– Proudly Posted using BlogPress from my first generation iPad