How to burn a billion dollars

[TheAnimus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20767537

So Instagram, which was bought recently for one *raises pinky to mouth* billion dollars, is set to sell user generated photographs, and not give any money to the users. This is not long after Twitter integration has stumbled.

Now ordinerally I'd say that would be the end of Instagram, but most users of the app are hipsters, people so stupid they don't have gears on their bicycles. The evolution denyiers of technology. They might simply not want to switch, because its 'cool'.

[jimbouk]

I don't think they'll get away with this. If you're trashed on some small tech sites then maybe, but getting on the BBC News homepage and the only opt-out is to delete you account then they need to backtrack very-very quickly otherwise a lot of people will just walk away.

Or to put it simply, it's no longer cool...

[Stoo]

Looks like they've hit reverse rather rapidly...

Although they're still attempting to blame users for "misinterpreting" the legal wording...

[g8ina]

http://blog.instagram.com/post/38252...were-listening

[jimbouk]

These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern the thriving and active Instagram community.

It said instead that users had incorrectly interpreted its revised terms of serviced, which it blamed on its "confusing" choice of language.

Hmmmmm, have they really back tracked or are they just fighting fires and still trying to push through the changes? Yes they've clarified what they meant, but they don't seem to have actually changed anything...

[kingpotnoodle]

Hmmmmm, have they really back tracked or are they just fighting fires and still trying to push through the changes? Yes they've clarified what they meant, but they don't seem to have actually changed anything...

It takes several days of lawyers vetting the language to get these things changed... well that's how it *should* work anyway.

If they want us to believe the furore is a "mis-interpretation" they'll have to try a bit harder. To me it looks like they tried to enact a long term monetisation plan to be a crowd-sourced photo repository and it's been rumbled, too much, too soon and with no cut for the "artist" - oops! Zuckerberg must have seen some money making opportunity to splurge a billion so this must have been in the business plans for a while...

[Raz316]

The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.

But why include such wording in the first place? The original text was...

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. 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.

Every time a free service changes their agreement this kind of thing comes up, and I do understand to an extent that "blanket" agreements are used to help avoid legal issues down the line. But you can't then say "Oh hey, yeah, we have no intention of doing that"

If they included a clause saying "BY USING INSTAGRAM AFTER 01/01/2013 YOU AGREE THAT WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN WHEN AND IF WE PLEASE" and when questioned about it state "Oh hey, nah don't worry about that, we don't intend to do that, hey let us remove that wording, that wording isn't what we intend to do" it wouldn't be ok.

[Ashwin]

I'm pretty happy about this actually because of how many of my facebook news feed posts are instagram. I would prefer people to use it in proper amounts instead of all the time taking pictures of their dinner etc.