As of recently, Instagram has begun implementing advertisements into its app. However, their approach to adding these additional advertisements are different to the approach for Facebook. Instead of having normal advertisements that any average user would notice, they are tailoring their advertisements to seamlessly integrate into the experience of Instagram. This meaning that the advertisements would be introduced and styled in a manner that would mimc the photos and videos uploaded by normal users. In my opinion this new approach is an innovative and fresh approach of making revenue with ads. There has never been any other way of advertisements except for pre-rolls or pictures on the side of any given website. This new seamless approach has yet to be seen, however, I do believe that it is a positive approach for advertisements and will receive general positive feedback, despite the negative connection of any type of advertisement. In my opinion, it is difficult for a business, especially an online business, to find a fine line of advertising quantity and its website/app itself. Due to the obvious negativity shrouded around advertising, the Instagram team is risking the potential loss of users or continuing users by adding advertisements.
We have seen the use of advertisements on Facebook and have witnessed the negativity as it was being introduced along with the gradual implementation of advertisements on Youtube. Naturally, there will always be negative feedback, nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how the public reacts to this new innovative way of integrating advertisements. As an avid Youtube user, the main problem with advertisements were the unnatural and awkward placements of all advertisements as well as the annoying pre-video advertisement rolls. These issues take away from the overall Youtube experience and has led to many computer users to acquire a tool called “Ad Block” which successively blocks out all advertisements. With this new system, it will be interesting to see how people react and grade the apparent “seamless” advertisement implementation.