Facebook’s Instagram mobile photo-sharing application now lets users send photos and videos directly to their friends, as it steps up competition against upstart messaging services such as Snapchat.
The feature, introduced last week, is called Instagram Direct and pops up in an icon on a user’s home feed. The tool lets people send photos and videos directly to as many as 15 friends, who can then discuss them using familiar features such as comments and the like button.
“It’s like gathering people around a photo, a moment, and being able to have a conversation about them,” says Kevin Systrom, the chief executive of Instagram.
Instagram is adding tools to fend off increasing competition from Twitter and newer messaging start-ups, including WhatsApp, Kik Interactive and Snapchat, all of which have garnered large user bases. Facebook last month offered to buy Snapchat, which lets users send photos that disappear once they’re viewed, for about US$3 billion and was turned down, an insider revealed.
“This new Instagram feature is kind of like Snapchat without the snap, or like Twitter direct messages, but with a group,” says Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner. “It’s like everybody is getting together and thinking: ‘How can we offer the same thing?’ The features themselves are cool but companies are having a hard time offering anything innovative or different.”
While Instagram may keep developing new capabilities, such as the ability to draw on photos, it’s unlikely to make messages disappear like Snapchat does, Mr Systrom says. Instagram’s service is more suited to being an archive, he adds.
“Snapchat has their own market and they are going after it in a really unique way,” he adds. “The way we’ve done it is just very different.”
However, Facebook’s dominance in social media has shown some vulnerabilities with teenagers in recent months. While usage among US teens was relatively stable during the third quarter on Facebook, there was a decline among younger teenagers who log on daily, the chief financial officer David Ebersman revealed recently.
Q&A: moments faithfully captured
When did Facebook take over Instagram?
Facebook, whose social network has more than 1 billion members, purchased Instagram for about US$700 million last year. It’s using the app to help it reach users on smartphones and tablets. The company has been updating the service, including adding the ability to take videos. In October, Instagram started letting advertisers deliver pictures to its 150 million users.
How is Twitter competing with all of this?
Last week the microblogging service that lets people post 140-character status updates, photos and videos, started letting users add pictures to their direct messages.
And what’s new on Facebook itself?
The California-based company has occasionally been unsuccessful in developing internal products to quash competition. Facebook last year unveiled Poke, which lets people send messages, videos or photos that are available only for as long as 10 seconds. The service is meant to be used like Snapchat. While the Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat apps are among the top 20 free programmes in Apple’s App Store, Poke doesn’t make the list.
Anything else up their sleeves?
Facebook is working on infusing its social network’s software with artificial intelligence. The company is hiring the professor Yann LeCun of New York University’s Center for Data Science to head up a new artificial intelligence lab, aiming to use cutting-edge science to make Facebook more interesting and relevant.
business@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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Gully Boy
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Producer: Excel Entertainment & Tiger Baby
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi
Rating: 4/5 stars
Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
Company%20profile
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
THE BIG THREE
NOVAK DJOKOVIC
19 grand slam singles titles
Wimbledon: 5 (2011, 14, 15, 18, 19)
French Open: 2 (2016, 21)
US Open: 3 (2011, 15, 18)
Australian Open: 9 (2008, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21)
Prize money: $150m
ROGER FEDERER
20 grand slam singles titles
Wimbledon: 8 (2003, 04, 05, 06, 07, 09, 12, 17)
French Open: 1 (2009)
US Open: 5 (2004, 05, 06, 07, 08)
Australian Open: 6 (2004, 06, 07, 10, 17, 18)
Prize money: $130m
RAFAEL NADAL
20 grand slam singles titles
Wimbledon: 2 (2008, 10)
French Open: 13 (2005, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20)
US Open: 4 (2010, 13, 17, 19)
Australian Open: 1 (2009)
Prize money: $125m
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Company%20Profile
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The%20specs
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The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
HEADLINE HERE
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5