Instagram announced today it has over 150 million users, while its Director of Business Operations Emily White confirmed that ads will be arriving on the photo sharing social network within the year.
Bought by Facebook for a billion dollars last year, Instagram has been looking for ways to monetize, and it looks like part of the solution will be putting ads in the ‘Explore’ feature, which already shows users popular and suggested pictures. Changing Instagram is potentially dangerous, as while it’s still a young service, its users have got used to life without ads.
When Instagram changed it’s Terms of Service eight months ago, prompting fears that photos could be sold to advertisers, there was a huge controversy, and many people threatened to leave. While Instagram is really popular, it’s easy to use photo filters are no longer unique, and people could quickly find an alternative. Its owner Facebook is no stranger to controversy surrounding ads, and is currently struggling to convince some users and privacy groups that its updated terms of service are reasonable.
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Another potential problem for Instagram is convincing companies to pay for advertising – it’s already a popular platform for brands, so why would they pay? It is likely that metrics are the answer. Instagram could offer companies detailed breakdowns of how photos are shared and liked and so on.
[Source: Instagram, Wall Street Journal]
