“The new tool will help Instagram reposition itself as a communication platform and not just a place to log pretty pictures. Like the other big social networks, it’s now competing for people’s attention with a slew of popular messaging apps that have grown quickly in 2013. Users of Snapchat, which famously boasts photos that disappears in ten seconds or less, now receive 400 million photos and videos each day. WhatsApp, a popular texting client now has 350 million monthly users, more than double Instagram’s 150 million. Another chat app, Kik, announced Thursday that it has 100 million registered users, an increase of 70 million from a year ago.
These chat apps have already undermined cell phone carriers’ traditional SMS text messaging, which declined for the first time ever in 2012. Now the big social networks see them as a threat too. A generation of teenagers who have grown up in the era of Facebook don’t necessarily want to broadcast all their photos and messages to everyone they know. The world’s largest social network has acknowledged that usage among its youngest members is declining. Newer apps easily allow users to tailor who sees what, and for how long.”
Time
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