title: [Book Sharing] The Inside Story and Price of Instagram's Rise - And How It Changed Culture, Business, Technology, Media, and Each of Us
published: false
date: 2021-02-13 00:00:00 UTC
tags:
canonical_url: http://www.evanlin.com/reading-instagram/
---
[](http://moo.im/a/1bqGJY "Instagram崛起的內幕與代價")
The Inside Story and Price of Instagram's Rise - And How It Changed Culture, Business, Technology, Media, and Each of Us
(No Filter : The Inside Story of Instagram)
Author: Sarah Frier
Translator: Yu Weida
Publisher: FaceBook
Publication Date: 2020/11/26 Language:
#### Book Purchase Recommendation Website: [http://moo.im/a/1bqGJY](http://moo.im/a/1bqGJY)
## Preface:
This is the second book I've read this year. The main reason I read this book was because of the introduction to this book on [the 87th episode of the "Star Rocket" Podcast](https://blog.starrocket.io/posts/star-rocket-podcast-ep87-the-book-no-filter-the-inside-story-of-instagram/) (can't get enough?). Although there was a podcast introducing this book for over an hour, it still made me want to buy it and read it carefully.
This book mainly introduces the rise of Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook for one billion US dollars in 2012. Although it was initially promised that Instagram would develop independently, as Facebook users gradually migrated to Instagram, Facebook's people also made many related interventions, which eventually led to the departure of founder Kevin Systrom from Facebook. There are many detailed descriptions in it, which also make people understand how Facebook acquired a company.
#### Reference Programs:
- [《Star Rocket Broadcast》Episode 87 - 1 Billion Worlds: The "No Filter" Entrepreneurial Story of Instagram](https://blog.starrocket.io/posts/star-rocket-podcast-ep87-the-book-no-filter-the-inside-story-of-instagram/)
- [Instagram wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram)
## Content Summary and Thoughts:
Founded in 2010, Instagram rose in just a few years and is currently the second-highest engagement social media platform in the world, second only to Facebook. More than a billion people worldwide use Instagram every month, with five hundred million daily active users, and more than one hundred million photos and videos uploaded every day. In 2019, its annual advertising revenue reached 20 billion US dollars, far surpassing YouTube's 5 billion.
How did the atypical Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Kevin Systrom and the Brazilian engineer Mike Krieger create Instagram with "counter-intuitive" decisions in a sea of red, and lead it to explode in popularity in just eighteen months, attracting Facebook (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg to spend a billion US dollars to acquire it, and further achieve commercial success today? Behind the legendary success, what price did Instagram and all users pay?
### Chapter List
1. Chapter 1 Code Name: Plan
2. Chapter 2 Successful Chaos
3. Chapter 3 A Surprise
4. Chapter 4 A Summer Full of Uncertainty
5. Chapter 5 Moving Fast, Breaking the Rules
6. Chapter 6 Comprehensive Domination
7. Chapter 7 New Celebrity Class
8. Chapter 8 Pursuing the Value of Instagram
9. Chapter 9 Snapchat Crisis
10. Chapter 10 Self-Inflicted Slaughter
11. Chapter 11 Another Fake News
12. Chapter 12 CEO
13. Epilogue The Price of Acquisition
The service Instagram, which started in 2010, initially focused on simple photo sharing services and photo filter services. By sharing to Facebook and Twitter, it began to attract more people to join and use it. It took a different route from Facebook, focusing on photography sharing, allowing users to share quickly, with a user-centric concept. It quickly gained a lot of people to join. But it was also seen by its competitor (?) Facebook, which acquired it in 2012. The book also introduces the entire acquisition process (of course, through news and interviews with many others).
Although it entered Facebook, it was initially operated independently. In contrast to Facebook's main advertising platform business model, Instagram proactively contacted advertisers and provided many suggestions and exclusive offers. This allowed many advertisers (even advertisers who originally disliked Facebook) to also place Instagram ads. Also, through the user-centric experience, and without making people (obviously) feel that Facebook owned Instagram. It also added many features to allow Facebook to defeat many competitors (Snapchat) in one fell swoop, and also allowed users to grow to one billion in 2019, and its revenue also reached a quarter of Facebook's overall revenue. The most terrifying thing is that when many young people are laughing at Facebook users for being old-fashioned and jumping to use Instagram, no one feels that they are also one of Facebook's users.
But the world is not so beautiful. The rapid growth of Instagram also slowed down the growth of Facebook users. Therefore, Facebook's senior management (Growth Hacking team?) also did a lot of research and began to hinder many traffic methods from Facebook to Instagram. The "independent development" that was promised at the beginning also did not fully materialize, which also led to the founder leaving Facebook in 2019. This book basically has about twenty percent of the content explaining the "sacrifices" and "struggles" brought about by their success. And the "price" of agreeing to Facebook's acquisition.
## Thoughts:
I think that everyone in all the start-up companies, many people hope that they can be successfully acquired by a large company when they grow. But no one has thought that many good services are avoided from being too big and are purchased by competitors through "defensive acquisitions". Although Facebook acquired Instagram, it did not immediately take it offline and make it its own. It also allowed Instagram to grow to over a billion users. But because many people just don't like Facebook and escape to Instagram, they didn't expect to still be under Facebook. It's no wonder that many people say that Facebook's acquisition of Instagram can be said to be the most worthwhile acquisition in the past decade.
This book also clearly explains that after a company is acquired, not everyone can immediately rise to the top and immediately own millions of assets. Many acquisitions often only allow engineering personnel to be incorporated into the parent company. Although they may obtain cheap stock exchange opportunities, not everyone can directly convert into cash with a beautiful stock price. And after the acquisition, there will often be resource allocation problems between the parent company and the subsidiary, and the opportunity of "功高震主". Just like Instagram in this book, it encountered many reviews and interventions from the parent company. These real-world inside stories are rarely described so clearly in this book. It is highly recommended that practitioners in the start-up industry take a good look at this book.
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