Facebook confirms it will 'monetise' Instagram

Ever since Facebook acquired Instagram this year, users have been anticipating a major change in their services. Facebook has finally confirmed that they are looking out to monetise Instagram.

In an interview with Business Insider, Facebook VP, Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson said that Facebook is indeed looking out to monetise Instagram services. The photo editing and sharing service has been a free app minus any ads so far but advertisers have been eyeing the platform ever since the Instagram rage caught on.

On being probed further Everson added, “Well, Instagram continues to grow incredibly fast and we’re still a very small team when you think about the amount of people they are reaching. There are many brands that use Instagram right now to try to get a feel for how to engage with their followers. We will definitely be figuring out a monetisation strategy. When that will happen, I can’t comment, but it’s going to happen.”

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Ads to come to Instagram?

Neither did Everson nor has Facebook confirmed what they meant by ‘monetisation.’ This revelation could mean that either ads would start to appear besides your Instagrammed images, or sponsored images could turn up on your feed. The latter seems more likely since Everson has mentioned brands using Instagram to connect with their followers.

Meanwhile Instagram has increased the rift between itself and Twitter by disabling support to cards, effectively meaning Instagram photos no longer popped out when you click on a tweet.

Instagram also started rolling out Facebook-like profiles on the web in early November. The profiles are mainly modelled over the Facebook timeline, with cover photos and the profile picture feature looking identical. The cover photo though runs recent images almost like a slideshow. Users can heart an image or comment on it – these web profiles were something Instagram users had been waiting for.

Twitter on the other hand has promptly acted by tying up with photo editing app Aviary to integrate its own photo editor within the app for Android. Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey had recently teased a few images on his Twitter account that showed images with a black and white photo filter and this was evidence enough that the update to Twitter was coming soon and came it did, much sooner than expected.

Twitter, in the announcement goes on to state that in June, 2011, they introduced the ability to attach a photo to a Tweet - this was the first step toward improving the entire photo experience on Twitter. Since then they have been making it easier and faster to share and discover and enjoy great photos on Twitter every day.

Instagram’s new owner, Facebook, has been notorious for its advertisements and sponsored stories not making the site or the mobile app a pleasant experience.  With even competitors like Twitter jumping into the photo-effect foray, Facebook will have to go out of their way to make sure advertisements on your Instagram feed don’t come out looking jarring, nestled between a processed image of a sunset and a baby smiling.