'Occasional ad' may pop up in your photo stream soon, says Instagram

Instagram, Facebook’s mobile-picture-focused social app,has announced in a new blog post that they intend on starting advertisements in the photo streams of users.

[caption id=“attachment_1152917” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A screengrab of Instagram on Android.[/caption]

“We have big ideas for the future, and part of making them happen is building Instagram into a sustainable business,” says part of the blog.

“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,” it said.

Like Facebook, Instagram users will be able to hide ads they don’t like, as well as provide feedback as to why they didn’t like the ad.

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Instagram also promises that the ads won’t be an onslaught; saying that “Seeing photos and videos from brands you don’t follow will be new, so we’ll start slow.”

A report in the Wall Street Journal in July of this year had expanded on the idea that Instagram remained the one unused weapon in Facebook’s arsenal as a source of revenue.

Mark Zuckerberg had also saidthat they would be working towards advertisements in Instagram.“We think that the right focus for now is to continue just focusing on increasing the footprint of Instagram,” said Zuckerberg. “And when the right time comes, then we’ll think about doing advertising, as well. And I think that’s going to be a really big opportunity.”