After the wild success of the Twitter IPO, two new social media sites are now preparing themselves to publicly list their shares. One of them is Instagram, which had 30 million users at its acquisition by Facebook in April 2012. Now, the membership has surpassed 150 million just a year and a half later.
Another site is YouTube, which has caused membership to spike after 2006, on its acquisition by Google. There are major differences though, as YouTube is the dominant online video site while Instagram is but one of many available online.
The latest disclosure by Facebook stated that 55 million photos are shared per day on Instagram while another 450 million are in the social media giant itself. Another photo sharing site, Snapchat also shares 450 million while another 400 million are seen on Whatsapp. There are no figures for Line or WeChat as well as the other services to be introduced by next year. Instagram is run of the mill with 150 million monthly active users while Whatsapp has double that and more with other sites along the same lines compared to Instagram.
Facebook did not solve the problem in purchasing Instagram - even in photos. It would be one of the many mobile social products and it is not even the biggest in the market. The fluidity of moving between these different applications allows for fluid use cases. Instead of specializing one app for one service, such as Instagram only for photos, WhatsApp for texting and Line for stickers, users are using all options for each and every app used. Instagram has also become a message center while many are using WhatsApp for photos.
This creates a dilemma, as people using different options for the same purpose. This creates for direct competition between these supposedly different platforms of social media. This is phenomenon is not a surprise, as there are three existing social apps in a standard smartphone, namely voice, SMS and email. These, as in all other apps, just adds more options available and is a clear vote against consolidation into one single platform.
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