Today: Instagram

Do you remember the great y2k internet bubble?
I think, we're on the way again.
That's why I decided to blog here from time to time.
Protecting values from being burned in overrated startups is my mission.
Defend hype with simple analytics is my goal.

Instagram
http://instagr.am

Product: iPhone.app that can take photos, apply filters on them, post messages to social networks.

Unevaluated facts:
May 2010: 500.000 $ seed funding
Nov 2010: 20 Million $ seed funding

Evaluated facts:
Oct 2010: Product introduced in Apple's appstore

Statements by founders:
Dec 2010: 1 Million users stated by Instagram

OK, let's watch the reality in a seven simple steps:

1. Visit http://instagr.am
All you can see, is a collection of stock photos, one of thousand is taken with an iPhone.
All the others are taken with professional cameras, light and lens. No iPhone is capable of huge optical zoom lens. The images at Instagram are... Wow!

Update: In time of writing, they have changed their site. As rumors are discussing these "dead" images, they don't show image collections any more. Today, even when visiting "real users" images, you are not able to see all their other images any more. Not too sad as they we're from stock collections.

2. Search Twitter for "instagram", "instagr.am".
The same users will flood the Twitter network with praising news about Instagram. Examples:

• My fav. startups of 2010 = @instagram for capturing life, @flipboard for evolving media ecosystem and @quora for collective intelligence. (quora hypes inset, don't know what clipboard does)
• Like new apps? I did a guest article @OneFortyBlog: #Instagram may be leading the “#Path” for photo social networks - http://bit.ly/e6MYNf
• @instagram When are we betting on having an Android version available? Thanks
• I'm about ready to switch to the iPhone just so I can have that cool Instagram app
• Waiting for the bus, installing Instagram and taking a test shot.
• I wish Instagram were available for Android. Is that a silly wish?
• 2010 Photo-app of the Year - Instagram
• Which social mobile apps have impressed you most this year? For me, Instagram
• @Horlix Instagram is great fun, it has mobile photography sorted. Predict it will become a serious Flickr challenger over the course of 2011
• @PhotoNetTV: Why isn't Flickr more social? Flickr Should Have Built Instagram. But They Didn’t. Here’s Why. http://ht.ly/3vSTI

And so on, boring to repeat. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

3. Search Twitter for  "taken with instagram". (Funny: They have to add this long tag to be found with their company name as they were so cool to settle on instagr.am…)

Every now and then you will find frequent shots of the same users spamming Twitter over and over with images. Like a sample:

4. Watch the frequency of "real users" tweets. If they had 1 million of users, why do you find an average frequency of posts below 15 minutes?

5. Watch the direct links of posted images (by today they all changed to tumblr.com). Most of them never have been made with an iPhone camera.

6. Watch the network around. MG Siegler is posting empathic about Instagram
https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/instagram-one-million/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/25/flickr-instagram/

7. Read the posts from Robert Scoble (hired by Quora)  about Instagram:
http://www.quora.com/Robert-Scoble-1/Instagram/answers

Sounds like praising the most important new app ever. Keep in mind, it just uploads images linked to famous networks like several others. No alchemy.

Starting after christmas, Instagram started a big spam flood at Twitter. 

As this flood reached my account, I decided to to start this blog.

In the time of writing, the first people at Twitter getting bored of it.

Resume: Why should you take all these efforts if you are above 1 million users in a few weeks? Do you really need a handful of fake accounts to introduce yourself? Do you need to feed yourself with purchased images?

Nobody cracked the million users in that time, but, eh... Instagram. Which is iPhone only. Feeding other networks.

We can get a lecture of this:

If your service is not alive, predicting it, doesn't make it.

If you ever are in the opportunity to invest into Instagram and decide against due to this post, please give 0.5% of the estimated amount for charity.

Update (thanks T. for the tip): 
Fire up your webbrowser and enter
http://topsy.com/s/%22taken+with+instagram%22/expert?maxtime=1293663600&mintime=1293058800
This starts the nice Twitter analyzer Topsy and looks for the posters of Instagram images in the last week.
mmoroca above 1,000
route24 above 400
cocoageek around 400
myownbiggestfan 315
and so on...
http://topsy.com/s/%22taken+with+instagram%22/expert?
shows all ever Instagram tweeters with at least two images.
15 results per page, 67 pages, that makes 1005 users.
Please add three trailing zeros by hand to reach their pronounced million.

Update 2:
Twitter has suspended the account that posted a link to a handful of potential related parties mentioning this blog.
Seems like our statistics are fine...

Update 3:
Twitter started some "cleanup" on retweets of our message. When you look for @tim_halter you find some conversation.
If you look for
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=&ands=instagram+hoax&phrase=&ors=&nots=&tag=&lang=all&from=&to=&ref=&near=&within=15&units=mi&since=&until=&rpp=20
you'll find the latest retweet that is deleted from the network.
While not personally offended, a meme combined of "Instagram" and "hoax" would be appreciated...

Update 4:
There is an enlightened blog from Sahil Lavingia about this kind of hoax called "Faking it". swombat.com reblogged this today. Thanks.

Update 5:
First signs the ship is sinking, investors embark!!!:

January 19, 2011: Techcrunch writes, that famous rapper "Snoop Dogg" had used Instagram.
January 21, 2011: Robert Scoble aka Scobleizer blogged and twittered that he suggests to drop Instagram in advance of PicPlz as they offer a better image quality ("Is our love of Instagram misplaced"?)