Apps are like bands. Word of mouth is always a better way of hearing about one than through media coverage.
When it’s word of mouth it feels cool like your friend is helping you discover something. When it’s media coverage it feels like the machine is telling you about something that is already guaranteed to be big.
When it’s word of mouth it’s Instagram, memolane, The Situationist, TV On The Radio or Portugal The Man. When it’s news it’s Path or Color, Arctic Monkeys or Kings of Leon.
Instagram feels like you’re involved in a community of people discovering just how something works and figuring out what makes it cool or forgettable. It’s the same as a band you hear about through word of mouth. There is some collective ownership of the people who catch them on the way up.
Color, its $40 million funding and its “leaked” pitch deck feel like overplay on the radio and a Rolling Stone cover.
This notion feels directly in line with what Lucius Kwok wrote last week about The Slow Company Movement on Felt Tip blog. “The idea behind the Slow Company movement is that instead of trying to be the first or to get the most mindshare or market share of any company in your vertical, you try to make something that people genuinely find useful and are willing to pay for it.”
The bands that play the bars, get a following and then grow from there, discover who they really are and learn about their fans. Phish is a great example. Love them or hate them, they know their fans and they’ve been packing arenas for nearly 20 years. Apps that come out quietly rather than launch, give themselves the opportunity to be discovered and grow a fanbase that is proud to share the app with their friends seem to have a better chance at longterm success. Facebook seems to be a reasonable example of this model.
Young bands that sign the record contract get distracted from the real work of becoming a great band. The contract may bring some initial cash, but is also exposes the band to a lot of people at once, many of whom may not be the right audience at all. The same thing can be said about a big TechCrunch article that becomes a distraction for an app or web service that is just trying to walk, but all of a sudden is expected to fly.
It’s as though my first interaction with Color has to be a reaction to what’s been written and what’s expected from the app that got more money from Sequoia than Google did. Whereas my first experience with Instagram is just me hearing about something new and taking time to discover what it’s all about.
With Color, the conversation is – “This app got $40 million. There’s a lot of hype. I don’t get it.”
With Instagram, the conversation is – “I’ve heard good things about this. It’s a rad way to take cool pictures and share them. My friends should check this out.”
Both of these conversations may be right or wrong. It just seems to me that developing a groundswell of users to become advocates of your app is a better way of “launching” than coming out as the next big thing with a bunch of dollars behind you.
Color may be a great app. It’s just a question if we’ll give it time to mature.
What do you think? Do you see the parallels? Any other examples of bands or apps?
I’ve got to put a bio on the
Money Models For Instagram
Monday, January 7th, 2013I work in advertising. I like advertising. It’s disappointing to me that a great social network and web service like Instagram can’t find a better way to monetize its product than advertising.
At the tail end of 2012 everyone freaked out that IG would be selling our photos because they updated their terms of service with some clumsy language. Instagram heard all the complaints, promised they wouldn’t be selling our images and issued a statement that included the following:
“Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way. In order to help make a more relevant and useful promotion, it would be helpful to see which of the people you follow also follow this business.”
Seriously? Booooooring. It’s just more, “Your friend Matt follows Sharpie. You may like to see Sharpie’s photos.” The same unimaginative stuff that litters Facebook. (Sharpie does actually have a pretty great IG feed).
I’m grossed out that we can’t find better ways for these services to make money so I decided to do some thinking.
Here are my ideas for how Instagram can monetize itself.
1. Charge For Use
Charge $1 or $10 per year. Or let me pay what I think it’s worth like Radiohead did with In Rainbows and Cards Against Humanity did with their recent holiday expansion pack. I did an anecdotal survey of the people who sit within earshot of me and 4/5 said they would pay to use it.
Some say there are other photo apps out there that they would use. My answer to that is that Instagram isn’t about taking photos in isolation. It’s about a channel that I can tune into to see my friends and family around the world. The same way that I used to flip on the television to see what was on, I now fire up Instagram to see what people are doing from Sydney to Portland and Boston to London. I’d pay for that.
2. Guarantee That Jay Z will see my photo
Sign a contract with Jay Z and other notable people and let a limited number of Instagram users populate a feed that these celebrities see. Jay can comment or like the photo if he wants, but no matter what you’ll get notification that he saw your image. I’d say that’s worth $5, $10 or $20 depending on the circumstance.
3. Digital Frame in the Oval Office
Similar to #2, but this is a frame that President Barack Obama will see every day. For a price your photo will show up there. Imagine your photo in the most powerful room in the world reminding our world leaders of what’s happening all over our planet.
Your Instagram right over Obama’s shoulder for the right price.
4. Digital Boards In Exotic Places
Instagram could put screens in random awesome places. They could put them on top of mountains, in stadiums and in Times Square. Then you can pay to have your photo displayed on those boards. Cameras will take a photo of your photo with in the amazing surroundings and provide you with an image you can share everywhere.
A billboard in the mountains would display your work of art for a small price.
Those are my first four ideas. Do you have any others? Post them in comments or tweet them with #IGCanMakeMoneyBy.
Dan Viens is a Digital Strategist at Wieden+Kennedy. He lives in Portland with a baby, a wife and a dog.
Tags: advertising, digital strategy, instagram, online advertising, revenue model, social, social media, social networks
Posted in Industry Commentary, ramblings | No Comments »