Naughty naughty Instagram wanting to sell your photos. But, err, but do they? My conclusion is they were about to, when people noticed and got annoyed, which is when they decided they were just not being clear about what they really meant. (But if you read the alleged proposed wording, I don’t think there is much lack of clarity really at all. Anyway …)
But, the more interesting conversation seems to me the one aired on Newsnight last night. We heard from David Rowan, editor of Wired UK, Joe Lynam from Newsnight and Jaron Lanier who ‘thinks big thoughts’ for Microsoft – watch it again here (about 35 minutes in).
A few issues which I have myself often mused about came up. First, that social media networks have thrown everything they’ve got at user acquisition, the more members, the better, the higher the apparent value of the social media asset. The solid ideas about stable, viable revenue generation seem to come second and also have to keep pace to a certain extent with the way users behave on these platforms, and the technology itself. Traditionally this income comes from advertising. Advertising also has to adapt to the way we consume social media and if more of us are using smart phones to do our social networking, then online advertising must play catch up too. We don’t like advertising interrupting our use of these platforms. But if we aren’t paying to use them, where else does the money come from to run them – and make profits for reinvestment and/or shareholder value/ reserves/ etc? So this all looks more and more tricksy.
From whence the next cunning plan to make money, which is to monetise the assets unwittingly created by the social network users themselves. In which case, Instagram selling your photos may be the tip of the iceberg. What’s to be done? If the users of social networks end up being the product, they will most probably run a mile – and the climb down by Instagram I think proves this, the suggestion was completely unpalatable, especially by stealth/ deceit. Perhaps, roll of drums, social networks might need to create something someone wants, and sell it to them? Or charge users to use the service? If we are really so addicted to Facebook etc, £5 a month would be worth it. I pay more than that to subscribe to Spotify because it’s a service I really value and, for me, it’s definitely worth paying for.
Perhaps, as Jaron in his US studio said, social networks should facilitate the selling between users of things they want and earn a (commission) income that way? Except we already have eBay, so what the value add is there I am left scratching my head about.
So, no one really had any answers I don’t think, but there were certainly many ideas. And throughout the piece there was I felt a bit of a sense that the emperor may not in fact be wearing any clothes – or certainly fewer than he at first pretended. Perhaps the great mirage which is the ‘value’ of the social network may be slowly/ not so slowly evaporated by the necessary economic reality of supply and demand. Creating products and services that people want to use, and will pay to use, in a straightforward way rather than being snuck up upon by corporations who would ‘assetise’ their social interactions in ever more ingenious yet ultimately corrosive and intrusive ways, seems, to me, progress.
I do also think that if it is never viable or desirable that the end user pays to use the service, and someone else such as a brand will pay so long as they get in return exposure to those users, then we might just need simpler, more transparent ways of that arrangement being completely and openly highlighted. In this regard sponsorship seems a much clearer, cleaner way of everybody getting something of what they want.
It’ll be very interesting to see how this all develops into 2013.