Hacker News Reader

Comment by mgalka | Hacker News Reader

There is actually very little difference in the functionality btw Twitter and Instagram. The real difference is in the "personalities" they have taken on by virtue of the people who use them.

People on instagram are looking for instant gratification (nothing wrong with that), so it will always win that battle. People on twitter are looking for news, controversy, protests, etc.

That's an important function for some people. But it does not have the same mass appeal, so can only scale to a certain degree. I don't see how they can solve that problem by adjusting the functionality.

View on HN

Agreed. At a high level, its about users, engagement, and KPIs for the businesses. For instagram that's posts, follows, likes, and comments.

With Twitter, its tweets, follows, "favorites", and... @shouting, which is still a "tweet."

The problem with twitter is if I search for, say #occupywallstreet, I'm probably much less likely to bookmark it than I would "like" an instagram photo.

The difference ultimately lies in the fact that its about attracting investment - and twitter/(instagram/facebook) all share the same piece of that pie. So when you're posting KPIs for your business - they better look better than someone else's even though they are different "people/personalities."

The truth is all social networks are competing for the same influx of new users - those coming of age and interacting with social networks for the first time. Twitter isn't winning the minds of existing users with their hearts - they'll be looking at engagement and retention metrics for users that have joined 6 months from now, and never even knew you could once "favorite" a tweet.

I don't think instant gratification is all there's to it and I don't know why every discussion of Instagram needs to describe its users as narcissists.

I regularly use Instagram as a photo archive to look back on travels, places I've lived, things that happened last month, etc.

And the general effect from my timeline is that I keep being reminded of the health and happiness of my friends, which has nothing to do with narcissism or instant gratification, really.

Didn't say anything about it being narcissistic. I only meant to say that people use Instagram to see photos, which is something that appeals to everyone, myself included.

People use Twitter, on the other hand, to convey ideas, often highly academic or controversial -- doesn't have the same mass appeal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com