Well, Instagram has long since been the place for hipsters to photograph their food and has now become a mainstream social networking site but as with all big websites, when success comes a knocking adverts soon follow. And so today, Instagram has announced that it will start delivering ads to users across the photo-centric social site.
Instagram announced the changes, describing them as “growing business”, stating that since its inception it now has a global community of over 150 million people capturing and sharing the world’s moments. This growth means many things, but as with all businesses it means that the money can and needs to be made, somehow.
Instagram has announced that it has “big ideas for the future” and to make these big ideas come true the company would need to be turned into a sustainable business. This means paid advertising.
“In the next couple months, you may begin seeing an occasional ad in your Instagram feed if you’re in the United States. Seeing photos and videos from brands you don’t follow will be new, so we’ll start slow. We’ll focus on delivering a small number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community.”
“Our aim is to make any advertisements you see feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many of you already enjoy from your favorite brands.”
Instagram also claims it will aim to give users some control over what they see, so if you see an ad you don’t like, you’ll be able to hide it and provide feedback about what didn’t feel right. This will give users the ability to help improve the incoming system and keep Instagram the pretty place it was supposed to be.
Now this major change was not exactly unexpected as Instagram is owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook who themselves are seeing a massive growth in profits from in-site advertising, but nonetheless many users will be turned off by the news and maybe it’s time for another new upstart to take the social networking limelight!
Adverts will be appearing on Instagram over the next couple of months.
Source: Instagram Blog