Instagram User Drop Claims Overblown 49
Nerval's Lobster writes "When AppData first posted a graph showing a 25 percent drop in Instagram's daily active users, it sparked a flurry of discussion online—much of it focused on the recent controversy over the photo-sharing service's Terms of Use. The New York Post, for example, blamed the dip on a 'revolt' among Instagram users incensed over changes in the Terms of Use, including new legalese that some interpreted as blanket permission for the service to start selling user photos to advertisers. But a new statement from AppData, which tracks app traffic, suggests there's another cause behind the dip in daily active users: the season. 'The decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes,' read a statement the firm sent to The Wall Street Journal. 'The drop between Dec. 24 and 25 seems likely to be related to the holiday, during which time people are traveling and otherwise have different routines than usual.'"
It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all. AppData only checks a subset of Instagram users, and the photo-sharing site itself has said the data represented there is not accurate. Another article points out that several other Facebook-related services showed significant drops, according to AppData, which could suggests a problem with the entire platform or with the data gathering methods.
VERY possible! (Score:3)
It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all.
Considering what users put up with in Facebook, I'd say it is very likely that the controversy was limited to the slashdot crowd.
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Companies abuse their customers and ...the customers like it?
Sony roots paying customers' computers with vandalism malware, removes the OtherOS feature that paying customers already paid for, gets "hacked" by putting sensitive customer info in a plain text internet facing database, yet still there are people posting at slashdot talking about their new Sony TV or computer. Hell, there are even people here who defend the RIAA!
Yes, they're stupid and yes, they don't care that they're being assfucked. I guess s
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I guess some people like being assfucked.
Most people just oppose screwing the ass in general.
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I believe the 25% drop due to the new TOS, because if anything people are uploading MORE pics during the holidays, not less.
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Considering what users put up with in Facebook, I'd say it is very likely that the controversy was limited to the slashdot crowd.
Anecdotally it was not. My 20-something niece who barely cares about facebook-privacy type issues despite my best efforts actually cancelled her instragram account before I had even heard about this controversy. I sent her an email around noon the day it broke on slashdot and she immediately wrote back to say she had already cancelled a couple of hours before. I hadn't even expected her to care, much less take such drastic action.
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These articles... (Score:1)
If Slashdot is just going to turn into a slew of these crappy articles, why shouldn't I just finally give up the ship and go read Mashable or TechCrunch, which focus on this kind of shitty content that nobody cares about unless they're a talking-head on a shitty tech podcast that has to dig up content to fill time for the masses every morning?
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Fuck you.
I only say that because you're right ... as I sit here on friday night doing just that (well, okay saturday morning, but I started on friday night!)
I say fuck you because I hate when people I right about pointing out my being a loser :/
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Unwritten rules of comments sections (Score:2)
why shouldn't I just finally give up the ship and go read Mashable or TechCrunch
Because you won't already know the unwritten rules of their respective comments sections, and your first few comments will be moderated down. Or because of "Login to Facebook to Post a Comment".
How is this "news for nerds"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously. Cell phones finally started getting decent cameras to take pictures with so now people run filters to make them look like faded polaroids?
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... new black and white films come out all the time ...
Yes, but black and white films are not degraded and faded versions of color films.
:-)
Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be to convert a color film to grayscale and to add some static to simulate a small black and white TV and its integrated antenna.
8-track emulator ... (Score:2)
Seriously. Cell phones finally started getting decent cameras to take pictures with so now people run filters to make them look like faded polaroids?
Are there 8-track emulator apps yet that play a song from your digital library, fade out in the middle, play a loud mechanical thunk sound effect, and then fade the song back in?
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Yeah, I never understood this Instagram thing.
After the first trickle of photos started appearing, I thought, hmm, ok I guess cross-processing (an old photography technique where you develop one film using the chemicals for a different film type) is coming back in style. Little did I know that some website was allowing anyone to do it with a mouse click and that everyone and their grandmother would discover it all at once, rendering virtually all photos from the past few years an ugly mess. Funny thing is w
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Seriously. Cell phones finally started getting decent cameras to take pictures with so now people run filters to make them look like faded polaroids?
No. People run filters to create an artistic view of what they are trying to present. Sometimes this is a faded polarioid look trying to make a picture look old fashioned, sometimes it's one of many other filters instagram offers.
It's laughable that you think it his a recent fad. People have been toying with fake colour and intentionally crippled photography for years to achieve certain effects. Take a look at the Holga line of plastic cameras that the hipsters have recently made all the more popular. They
Note the source (Score:3)
We in our tech circles know about the T&C of Instagram but to think that 25% of Instagram users know anything about this--much less care enough to stop using the service simply does not pass the sniff test.
NY Post, a questionably new source to begin with citing AppData, a company that has to use conjecture to create insight means there is NO NEWS HERE PEOPLE.
Good (Score:1)
Hopefully Facebook will go down the drain soon. It has been a plague on the internet since it's birth.
Plastic bag (Score:1)
So a sensational article covering a sensational article about something that had no basis of claim.
Now for my next favorite past time: sticking my head in a plastic bag taped-shut while running.
Maybe (Score:3)
Maybe given that it is the holiday season a subset of users of such services decided to spend time with real people like real friends and family for a change? You know, instead of the hundreds of 'friends' they've never even met?
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But how do you capture the memory with a filter?
Addiction. (Score:3)
Nothing will change until a new dealer comes around with a better product.
Check sources before discussing? (Score:2)
Like, how is that news?
Hmm (Score:1)
I doubt most people using Instagram understand the implications (if any) created by the policy change.
The Post? (Score:2)
Let me get this straight, the New York Post histrionically asserted something with little consideration for a developing story and ran with it before all the facts were in?
NO WAY.
Did you know that water is wet, too?
ridiculous (Score:2)
Slow shift (Score:2)
I know a few people that used this as an excuse to jump ship back to Flickr, now that Flickr's app is pretty good. But I've got a lot of contacts on Instagram, so I'm weaning myself off of Instagram by posting my pictures on a delay, and providing links to my Flickr account. I'm still counted as an 'active' user, particularly on a weekly basis, but I'm using the service less. I'll be keeping my account to look at the photos that friends are posting for the foreseeable future, though.