Instagram owns you

CNet is reporting that Facebook & Instagram have stirred up the Internet on Monday by announcing that they have the right to sell photographs taken with their application. People are in an uproar about this because they are not being compensated for this or being able to opt out of the service.
Come on people…
Instagram/Facebook is providing you with an application, webspace and bandwidth to share your photos with anyone on the Internets. How much did you have to pay for all of this? Oh right, this is a free program. This company is providing you with a free, easy method of sharing your pictures of food, duckface self-portraits and scenery feet pictures with a plethora of photo filters. Add on continued app support for the future and you’ll begin to understand that free apps have to bring in money somehow.
Some people have said that the photographers should get a percentage of the sales. Sure in a perfect situation, that would be great, but Instagram is already offering a free service. They don’t owe the photographers anything else. Sure, the photographer found that ‘perfect’ angle of their strawberry crepes & espresso this morning and published it, but so did hundreds of other people. Secondly, I imagine that Instagram doesn’t want to deal with treating all their millions of users as contract employees. That would be a paperwork nightmare.
Obviously, I am no fan of Instagram, but I think they are in the right to attempt to make revenue somehow. (Whether or not it will be successful, I don’t know) There is an opt-out option though. Simply stop using Instagram and delete the app and ALL of your photos from their servers well before January 16th. That includes your shares on Facebook as well. Unless the photographer is a shareholder, the person has no right or deserves anything back from Instagram and they agreed to such when using their app.
I know the Internet has this long standing feeling that things should be free, but the reality is that there has to be money made somewhere or the ‘free’ stuff will disappear.

The Woz loves his Android phone?

 

I’m sure the hardcore Apple fans will be screaming blasphemy, but I love this article, because it shows that Apple is not the alpha and omega of smartphone innovation.  Google is also doing some great things with their Android OS.  Honestly, I was never that much of a Steve Jobs fan.  (With respect, he did know how to present Apple products very well)  He always just came across as a jerk to me, but Wozniak is just awesome and charismatic.  He’s like a Santa Claus that doesn’t need elves to create his technology and instead, decided to use something that Yukon Cornelius created because he’s willing to admit that it works. (I bet you weren’t expecting a Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer reference, huh?)

Technolog – Wozniak likes his Android phone a lot.