As one of Instagram’s new Android users I’ve been getting to know the service this week. And I’m not surprised it’s just sold to Facebook for $1bn.  As well as being fun and elegant to use, it makes sharing photos social in a way Flickr, for example, hasn’t managed to do. Knowing you have an audience for your photographs makes you want to take more; it’s also an inspiring pin-board of retro washed-out visuals.  Instagram’s sale prompted Ben Jacobs on Twitter to note: “Kodak goes bankrupt and Instagram is worth a billion dollars. 2012, y’all.” It’s a salient point to make and let it be yet another warning to all legacy media institutions.  Kodak could so easily have been Instagram. It had the brand, the following of photography enthusiasts and the capital. All it needed to do was realise the future of photography was not in propping up an outdated industry.  But it didn’t. And now it’s dead.
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As one of Instagram’s new Android users I’ve been getting to know the service this week. And I’m not surprised it’s just sold to Facebook for $1bn. 

As well as being fun and elegant to use, it makes sharing photos social in a way Flickr, for example, hasn’t managed to do.

Knowing you have an audience for your photographs makes you want to take more; it’s also an inspiring pin-board of retro washed-out visuals. 

Instagram’s sale prompted Ben Jacobs on Twitter to note: “Kodak goes bankrupt and Instagram is worth a billion dollars. 2012, y’all.”

It’s a salient point to make and let it be yet another warning to all legacy media institutions. 

Kodak could so easily have been Instagram. It had the brand, the following of photography enthusiasts and the capital. All it needed to do was realise the future of photography was not in propping up an outdated industry. 

But it didn’t. And now it’s dead.

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