I really like Instagram.  It makes it easy to upload photos on the go, share them with all of my followers, and get social feedback via likes and comments.  Unfortunately, recent events are leading a lot people to close their accounts.  I’ve got to admit, I’m considering closing mine as well.

In a recent change to their Terms of Service, Instagram has declared that:

1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service’s Privacy Policy, available here: http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/.
2. Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you. If you are under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to this provision (and the use of your name, likeness, username, and/or photos (along with any associated metadata)) on your behalf.

The "non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free" portion of the first part is pretty standard.  This just means that when you upload a photo to Instagram, they can display it without worrying about you suing them.  The next part is a little troubling though.  "Transferable" and "sub-licensable" means that they can take the permission you’ve granted them and give it to someone else.

Alone, this might be worrisome, but wouldn’t lead to a mass exodus.  The second part, however, means that Instagram could take the photos you are posting and the name you are posting under and sell them to a company to use in ads.  Furthermore, the money that Instagram gets from the ads would remain with Instagram.  They wouldn’t share it at all with the people who took and posted the photos.

History Repeats Itself

Two years ago, I was a happy TwitPic user.  I would take photos with my phone and send them to TwitPic to be posted online.  (I didn’t have a smartphone or data plan at this point.)  Then, TwitPic changed their Terms of Service to give them the right to sell posted photos to third parties without sharing the revenues with the users who posted the photos.

Sound familiar?

There was an exodus from TwitPic as people switched to YFrog and other services.  I, on the other hand, took a different route.  I used a combination of WordPress plugins to create my own photo posting area on my blog.

This worked well until I got a smartphone and Instagram came to Android.  These happened at about the same time and I was lured in.  I didn’t play with filters, but I liked the ease of taking a photo and posting it.  I also found that I liked the social feedback.  Comments and likes were easily administered and displayed.  So I began to use Instagram for all of my "on the go" photo postings.

Instagram’s Clarification

Now, Instagram had heard the uproar and has tried to clarify by saying "it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."  For the moment, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.  The new TOS doesn’t take effect until early January so they have until then to change their Terms of Service.

If they don’t change it in a favorable manner, however, I’m going to leave.  I don’t care if they say "we don’t plan on selling your photos" if their Terms of Service says "we can sell your photos any time we decide to do so."

How To Make This Into A Win

Now, I’m not going to begrudge Instagram making a profit.  I know that it costs money to run the service and they need to recoup this somehow.  And selling users’ photos is a clear path to revenue.  But this was the wrong way to go about it.  Were I to implement this, there would have been massive changes.

First of all, the service would be opt-in.  Not a single photo would be sold unless a user first decided that they wanted their photos to be available to be sold.  Secondly, marking your photos to be sold would just mean that you would get offers from companies.  A company would find your posted photo, decide they’d like to use it, and would make an offer to you via a channel Instagram would provide.  When the user and the company came to an agreement, Instagram would handle the payment.  Instagram would take a cut and the user would get the rest.  The company would then get the photo to use for the agreed upon purpose.

This system would allow photos to be monetized while still retaining user control over how their photos are used.  If anything, it would make their system more useful and might lead more people to post there hoping that their photos would lead to an offer.

Has Instagram’s new Terms of Service made you consider closing down your Instagram account?

Note: The trash can icon above is by hrum and is available from OpenClipArt.org.  I added the Instagram logo to it.

When I was a kid, I remember being very afraid of bugs.  If I was mowing the lawn and a dragonfly passed by me, I’d duck and run away.  If a spider crawled down the walls, I’d have to leave the room.  Don’t even ask me what I did if a bee flew my way.

At some point, though, I got over my fear of bugs.  I think it mainly is due to my love of photography, specifically macro photography.  Once I began looking at the world of small things through the lens of my camera, bugs went from scary creatures to avoid to fascinating subjects to photograph.

Years ago, B would roll her eyes and put up with me crouching over to take a very close photo of a weird bug.  Today, though, I think I’ve (partially) converted her.  When we saw a big, weird looking spider in our front yard, she didn’t even flinch as I asked for her camera.  (We were on our way out and mine was locked in the house.)  And so I took a photo.

Of course, half the fun is taking a photo.  The other half, is zooming in on the photo to see the details.  For example, just how hairy this spider is.

My, what hairy mandibles you have!

Now, if I could only identify what kind of spider this is.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you find bugs fascinating or creepy?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #161

Soon after we got our smart phones, Instagram came out for Androids.  I downloaded it immediately and tried it out.  I’ll admit that my first impression was poor.  I didn’t see the draw in taking small photos of things and putting filters on them.  After a few posted photos, I moved on.

Sometimes later, I decided to give Instagram another shot.  This time, I found I loved using it.  I still steer clear of the filters, preferring instead to show the photos as they are taken.  Still, it is a quick and easy way to share out photos.  I could have Instagram tweet out the photo and still keep a gallery of my photos for people to look at.

Granted, Instagram isn’t perfect.  For one thing, there’s no spell check within the app.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost sent out an update with a mistyped a word because there was no red squiggly line alerting me to the incorrectly spelled word(s).  Secondly, Instagram itself doesn’t have a gallery.  I can’t just tell people to go to Instagram.com/TechyDad/ to view all of my photos.  Even if you load up one of my Instagram photos, there’s no way, in a non-mobile browser, to click to see more photos by me.  This is the exact opposite problem that many websites have.  (Ignoring mobile browsers and crafting their site only for non-mobile visitors.)

Thankfully, there are a few sites that can load your Instagram photos in a gallery-like format.  I’m partial to Instagrid.  You can view my Instagram photos on Instagrid here: http://instagrid.me/techydad/

Now that I’ve added that link to my header, I can easily direct people to my Instagram feed whether they have a smartphone or not.  So if you aren’t on Instagram, take a look at my photos from time to time.  If you are on Instagram, why not follow me?  Let me know your Instagram names in the comments and I might follow you as well.

NOTE: This photo was taken by my Droid Bionic, recolored with Color Touch Effects and watermarked with Add Watermark Free.

On Sunday, NHL had a birthday party to go to.  While he was having fun there with B, I decided that JSL and I should have a father-son day out.  After all, he had just endured 8 days of Passover food and none of the food he usually likes.

After a quick lunch at Five Guys (grilled veggie sandwich for me and grilled cheese for JSL), we headed to a big park.  There, JSL ran through the hedge maze, played tag with me in the big fields, led the way through a hike on the wooded path, and finally played on the playground.

As the time to leave approached, I let JSL know we’d only stay five minutes longer.  While we were waiting for a swing to free up, suddenly, the playground was invaded.  A hawk flew right behind the swinging kids and swooped towards a black bird on the ground nearby.  The bird got away so the hawk then, without skipping a beat, flew back up to the branches of a nearby tree.

Usually, I’d have went over to take photos with my DSLR.  However, in an effort to travel light, I decided to leave my DSLR at home.  I had my new camera phone, but JSL really wanted to swing.  So I resorted to that old parental standby: bribery.  I told JSL that if he came with me to get some hawk photos, I’d not only restart our "countdown until we leave the park" timer, but I’d also add five extra minutes.  JSL reluctantly left the swing area and came with me where I (and someone else with the same idea as me) took a few hawk photos.

Unfortunately, they didn’t come out great.  Camera phones can take decent photos in some situations, but this wasn’t one of them.  My DSLR would have taken a much better photo.  Still, at least I got some record of the hawk that almost turned the playground into a feeding ground.  I also learned an important lesson: The more times I can take my DSLR out with me, the better!