Instagram founder: Mobile priority is the key to product success

Instagram founder Kevin Histrom lead: American Science and Technology blog Business Insider Friday, Instagram founder Kevin Histrom (Kevin Systrom) recently received an interview about the success factors of Instagram, The progress of commercialization, and the direction of future development. Instagram, he said, will help users understand all kinds of information and become a platform for users to "learn the world". The following is the full text of the article: Systrom may be the luckiest person in the tech industry. This is not to say that he doesn't work hard, but that the photo-sharing app He founded 3 years ago Instagram just happened to have a series of favorable factors. In the Observer's London office, the Boston-born software engineer fully demonstrated his faith and calmness. As an entrepreneur who sold his company at a rate of 1 billion dollars at the age of 28, the style was expected. He is well prepared, especially about how Instagram will be profitable. But he was more excited by the depiction of the future. "Filter Fatigue" he said: "Currently Instagram 55 million photos per day, so we focus on photo browsing and discovery." If you see something interesting happen in Syria or Egypt, then we will help you to convey the voice to the world. The balance between manual editing and machine arithmetic is interesting because no one can point out what you look like. "This is a higher level than most people experience in Instagram." The current Instagram is mostly saturated with nostalgic photos, while photos include sunset, coffee art and cute children. Systrom admits that Instagram users have had some degree of "filter fatigue," but says it helps users edit their own lives. "About the filters, I think it's a recorded tone," Systrom says. We allow users to edit their feelings. He mentioned the film "Drug Network," which uses different techniques to tell 3 different stories. "We allow users to use similar records for their lives," he says. More and more, the new filters we provide only bring subtle changes. Because if you change your photos too much, you won't want to see them again in 20 years. We want to make sure that after 5-10 years, the content that the user records in the Instagram still makes them feel useful, not in any way considered to be ' sugar flakes ' or arrogant. "Instagram's popularity is a concern because it covers a large number of mainstream users who are less interested in Silicon Valley. With the support of convenient photo sharing, Instagram accumulated 150 million users in a short time. On the other hand, the popularity of mobile applications and the mobility of content is a major reason for the rapid development of Instagram. Move Precedence inStagram's "Move first" service is key to its success and is a major reason why Facebook (49.11, 0.06, 0.12%) is interested. Facebook needs to show its customers that it is ready to adapt to market trends and move to a mobile business. "This is not an option," says Systrom. If we ask users to sign up for a service and help them upload photos taken 5 hours ago, Instagram will not work. Instagram's uniqueness is to focus on the present, and the photos you see are real-time. "Systrom also talked about the limitations of the mobile device screen, which was considered a problem by advertisers. But he argues that such restrictions also offer creative advantages. "Small screens and restrictions bring beauty," he says. Unlimited space is a compelling and challenging experience. We provide you with such a small space and say ' focus only on a small area of this picture '. This feeling is simple and cordial, is also a very favorite aspect of users. "Even in the world of Mark Zuckerberg's engineering development, there is no algorithm that can be based on a gold partition to determine what kind of picture is beautiful," Zuckerberg. "I don't think it's an algorithm, but more about the signals that the community gives, the attention to influential people and the understanding of the network effect," says Systrom. "Currently, Instagram's 6 community editors are responsible for processing 150 million of photos uploaded by users. Their choices include photographs of the Chinese Qingming Festival. So what is the difference between the 6.9 million Instagram users in the UK? "If we pay too much attention to San Francisco, we can't understand the sensitivities of different cultures," says Systrom. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) monitors user data and it affects people here, so we come here to understand these different things and have some different conversations. "The commercialization of the current, most Silicon Valley companies first consider how to attract a large number of users, then to consider making money." "Most of the companies I touch are worried about finding something to attract users, because if you can't attract users, no one will want to advertise through you," says Systrom. If you are only developing products for advertisers, then we will have no users. "The idea is reasonable, but Instagram is in a unique position. Facebook bought Instagram in April 2012. Even as Facebook's share price fell, the final value of the deal dropped from $1 billion to $715 million, but the size and speed of the acquisition still surprised the industry. A 1 billion dollar deal is rare, and Zuckerberg spends 1 billion dollars on a company that has zero revenue. After 18 months of being acquired, Instagram still did not get revenue. But as a FacebookCompany, Instagram is cautiously trying to commercialize. This work is done by "star" Amily White (Emily White), a Facebook insider. She currently serves as Instagram's senior business development manager, and Systrom's relationship is similar to that of Cherille Sandberg (Sheryl Sandberg) and Zuckerberg. Instagram launched the video service in June 2013, but it did not trump Twitter's short video service Vine. Systrom declined to provide data to demonstrate the popularity of Instagram video services among users and to work to avoid higher expectations for the business potential of the service. For advertisers who still trust television media, Instagram and Vine currently offer short video services that seem designed for them. But Instagram's first advertising product will not be available until later this year. Despite frequent internal movements, Instagram remained remarkably calm to avoid runaway conditions. Facebook users are sensitive to new forms of advertising, and the relationship between users and the service is Instagram. After being acquired, Instagram attempted to adjust the use agreement in December 2012, allowing the user's photos to be used for commercial purposes. The move has been fiercely opposed. Systrom said: "The advertising potential is good, but we will not launch products for advertising." "The form of Instagram products, the photo stream with comments, has been adopted by many other mobile applications, whether classified ad applications or self display applications." "It's a very compact way of disseminating information, and you can build a good business around it," says Systrom. "This year, Instagram is focusing on international markets and trying to cover new non-traditional technology users, such as Hollywood and some fashion brands." In addition, Instagram encourages designers and developers to leverage their open platform development tools. Instagram's open platform provides developers with some key elements of the service. "Once you build the developer community, they develop the apps that users want, and then more people want it, and you can reinvest in the developer community," says Systrom. This is a virtuous circle. Systrom also talked about Google (871.99, 3.75, 0.43%) glasses. Google glasses built a camera, can take photos and video, but also integrated map services. This is a good platform for Instagram. However, Systrom said: "We want to be ubiquitous, involving all platforms, all types of mobile phones, tablets and wearable computing devices, which will be the core elements of information sharing." 5 years later, I hope to see not only the content of my friends, but also the morning news from many channels in Instagram. I hope inStagram become the place to study the world. "(Fan fan)