Today, Instagram introduced ‘Instagram Direct’ which is clearly meant to compete with Snapchat — the company that said ‘no thanks’ when Instagram’s dad Facebook tried to buy them for 3 mil.
Instagram Direct seemed pretty cool at first. Now, when you upload a pic to Instagram, you can choose to send it to all your followers or up to 15 followers with a direct option. Then you can have a private conversation about that photo with the person you sent it to. It’s like a modern day AIM.
But – it’s not Snapchat. Sure, I think the one thing Snapchat is missing is a way to know what someone thought of your photo. Like, every time I send out mass snaps I never know what people think of them. When I sent the picture of myself having a double chin to my friends, did they think it was gross? Or funny? Or stupid? I’ll never know unless someone texts me… and that kinda bothers me. But not that much, because I’ll send more pictures of myself with a double chin again.
Here are some issues I have with Instagram Direct:
1. You can’t draw or write directly on your picture. Everyone knows the best part of Snapchat is being able to draw pictures on your pictures. We loved Paint in Elementary School and Snapchat is kind of equivalent to Paint. And that is awesome.
2. You can see who viewed your pictures… and others can see when you viewed there’s. And then when you view it, you can like it right away displaying a “heart.” This is just asking for problems. It’s like when BBM told everyone when you viewed texts and people were all like I KNOW YOU READ MY TEXT. WHY DIDN’T YOU ANSWER? Now people will be like “I KNOW YOU SAW MY INSTA-D (Instagram Direct abbreved — does that work?). WHY DIDN’T YOU LIKE IT OR START A PRIVATE CHAT WITH ME?!”
3. You can only send your photos to up to 15 people. Oh, sorry I have lots of friends. What if I want to mass snap my pic to, like, 30 people? Then what?
4. Snapchat’s camera has the ability to make people look good. I don’t know why, but it kind of hides all your flaws and makes you look tan without having to add a filter. Maybe that’s because it’s NOT actually a good camera. But either way. I’m not snapping pics of myself doing a moronic face to anyone unless it’s taken from Snapchat’s camera. There’s a reason no one takes and sends awful selfie’s NOT from Snapchat. AND INSTAGRAM’S CAMERA IS THE WORST – IT IS A SQUARE AND SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T FIT EVERYTHING YOU WANT IN THE PICTURE. Clearly, this is an issue I have with Instagram… Anyway…
5. There’s no dancing ghost on E. And every cool app needs a dancing ghost on E.
Soooooo, in conclusion Instagram Direct isn’t really competition to Snapchat. Get a Paint feature and then we’ll talk.
