Tag Archives: Business

Updated Instagram Terms Of Service

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Instagram, purchased by Facebook back in April, have made their first update to their Terms of Service since the acquisition. As expected, these provide Facebook with more access to Instagram’s (and thereby your) data.

For example:

To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata) and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

This means that basically Facebook can now use your Instagram photos, location tags, username and any other associated data in ad campaigns paid for by Facebook’s advertising partners or other 3rd parties. Your data may now become an ad, and certainly you won’t know about this, be asked permission, or receive any financial compensation.

In addition:

We may share ‘User Content’ and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of…

Similar to the previous clause, this  basically means all your Instagram data is shared with Facebook’s ad partners to allow for increased targeting of ads.

Then my favourite:

You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content or commercial communications as such

This is all to be expected. Facebook is an advertising company that uses a social network to increase the value of its product (i.e. you and your data). I think it does somewhat remove some of the inherited joy of using Instagram though, knowing that its purpose for being is no longer to provide a great service, but to monetise your activity.

I can’t see myself using the service for much longer, which is easy for me as I wasn’t a particularly frequent user in the first place. Others will likely not know or care about these changes and will no doubt continue to enjoy using it.

There goes another independent service to one of the ‘big four’ (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon). Up next, Foursquare…

P.S. If you want to delete your Instagram account (I’m seriously considering this), you can do so here. If you’re looking for an alternative, you could do a lot worse than the just-updated Flickr by Yahoo. Still a free service so there’s probably still an advertising undercurrent, but Yahoo are currently in such a state of recovery that they are going to do everything in their power to look after their users – they can’t afford to do anything else.

iPhone 5 and Apple: the Long Game

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The iPhone 5 has been released, and has been the trend since the original iPhone unveiling, there’s been plenty of vocality about how it lacks the wow factor we’ve come to expect from Apple product announcements. People have mainly been unimpressed by the fact that the only major change seems to be a taller screen, or that it lacks some of the new technologies that people expect in a cutting-edge phone, such as NFC or wireless charging.

Here are a few thoughts that I think should be considered before leaping to these conclusions.

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What on Earth is going on with OnLive?

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Over the last few days OnLive, a service that I have considered as a pioneer of its field (here's my initial review) has gone through some very tumultuous changes. Specific details are few and far between (here's a link to their pathetic statement that's supposed to clear things up), but the 'facts' seem to be:

  • OnLive has sold its assets to a “new investor”

  • All of its 150-200 staff have been fired (or some variation of), but some are to be hired by the new company

  • The service is expected to continue un-interrupted

We don't know anything more. Will the OnLive service really continue to operate or are they just saying that because at the moment they have to? Who is the new owner? Why was OnLive sold in the first place? What is going to happen to the staff? What is going to happen to the customers? What is going to happen to the content? Will I still be able to play my purchased games?

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Facebook’s NASDAQ Summary

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Here's the overview of Facebook that is found on their profile page on Google Finance:

Facebook, Inc. (Facebook) is engaged in building products to create utility for users, developers, and advertisers. People use Facebook to stay connected with their friends and family, to discover what is going on in the world around them, and to share and express what matters to them to the people they care about. Developers can use the Facebook Platform to build applications and Websites that integrate with Facebook to reach its global network of users and to build personalized and social products. Advertisers can engage with more than 900 million monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook or subsets of its users based on information they have chosen to share with the Company, such as their age, location, gender, or interests. It offers advertisers a combination of reach, relevance, social context and engagement.

For the sake of reading too much into something:

Isn't it interesting how in the first sentence, Facebook lists users, developers and advertisers equally as beneficiaries of its “products” that “create utility”? Apparently we're all in a big ol' Circle of Life, each equally reliant on each other and doing so via Facebook's “utility”-creating products.

This just seems a bit odd to me – Facebook wouldn't exist without its users and the core functionality of social sharing. 3rd party developers and advertisers are relatively new to the party; necessary evils in order to allow Facebook to demonstrate a sound business model, but they've been given equal prominence in the description above as if there's some open and happy relationship between, for example, users and advertisers on Facebook.

Another random spot: users and developers get one sentence each, whereas advertisers get two. That's double!

In the words of Marco Arment, “Everyone has their bullshit, you just have to decide whose you're willing to tolerate”.

 

The thing about companies copying Apple

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The online tech community has been fairly vocal regarding the seemingly endless supply of Apple design knock-offs at 2012′s CES.

It’s the same argument; that Apple innovate and their competitors immitate. For the most part, I agree. Not only do Apple’s competitors seem to consistently pump out products with extraordinary similarities to Apple products, but they always seem to do so after Apple releases something. You’d think if it was all just a big coincidence then some of these designs would precede Apple’s no?

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On ZeeBox’s BSkyB partnership

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This is an old draft I never got around to publishing but here goes…

I spotted Zeebox a couple of weeks ago and having thought about its implications I was surprised that it was the only prominent app on the iOS store doing what it is doing.

I think most people would agree that social TV is the inevitable next step; it just hasn’t been implemented properly yet (e.g. the disastrous performance of Google TV). Zeebox provides real-time twitter and cast/crew etc information about TV shows. You pick the show that you are watching, and it will show you what people are tweeting about it, and will promote tweets from cast and crew.

So, they’ve now sold 10% to BSkyB, announced on both the Sky and Zeebox blogs. This is a pretty big deal as this is a public demonstration of the sort of technology that we will see in Sky’s satellite TV service (they’ve admitted as much in the announcement). You don’t usually get such an advanced preview of a company’s plans.

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Sarcasm Is The Worst Defence

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Apple have always created a bit of a divide in user opinion about their products and philosophy. Apple fans frequently find themselves having to go on the defence from those who very openly criticise Apple.

When I started buying Apple products, I encountered this and had to learn what approach to this argument worked for me. I took (and still do) the stance of “I personally place enough value on the things Apple do well to justify the cost of ownership, but if you value different things then that’s your choice”. I don’t think people who prefer PCs are ‘wrong’ and I don’t try and force Apple-speak down anyone’s throat (although defending Apple can be seen as a sign of this by many).

So I am disappointed that the elite of the Apple bloggers are more and more frequently resorting to sarcasm, elitism and arrogance when it comes to addressing the competition. I can totally see where it has come from, but I don’t think they quite realise the harm they are doing and the stereotype that they are falling into.

I’m not going to list these bloggers as your journey through the web is yours and yours alone. However I will link to my favourite blogger at the moment, Matt Alexander, who writes excellently and seems to be able to maintain distance from getting too emotional about the whole thing!

Matt Alexander’s blog: ONE37.NET

The Double-Edged Sword of Employer Prying

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Really great read from Reginald Braithwaite, proposing a fake resignation letter dealing with the inherent problems with employers prying on your social network activity:

This time, I found myself talking to a young man fresh out of University about a development position. After allowing me to surf his Facebook, he asked me how I felt about parenting. As a parent, it was easy to say I liked the idea. Then he dropped the bombshell.

His partner was expecting, and shortly after being hired he would be taking six months of parental leave as required by Ontario law. I told him that he should not have discussed this matter with me. “Oh normally I wouldn’t, but since you’re looking through my Facebook, you know that already. Now of course, you would never refuse to hire someone because they plan to exercise their legal right to parental leave, would you?

I hadn’t thought of it like that.

via mpanzarino

What Is Apple Working On Now It Owns Three Mapping Companies?

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I was having a gander through Wikipedia’s list of Apple acquistions, and noticed that they now own not one, not two, but three mapping companies. Each time one of these purchases took place, there was the inevitable speculation about the potential replacement of Google Maps on iOS. This has yet to materialise, but Apple are showing no signs of losing interest in mapping, so what can we conclude? Here’s a quick summary of the mapping acquisitions so far:

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Zynga and zCloud: Steam For The Web

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You’ve probably heard of Zynga, or at least one of their products. They are the proud creators of Farmville, once the 3rd most popular game on facebook, with over 200 million monthly active users of their freemium games. In December 2011 they went public, raising about $1bn.

It seems like a story of success, but a few things indicate that Zynga are in the process of diversifying both their products and their revenue streams.

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