Categories: Articles

Why Facebook Camera Matters

Facebook launched a mobile camera app.

You may be wondering why Facebook launched a mobile camera app (quaintly called, Camera) just a short while after purchasing Instagram in a heart-stopping billion dollar acquisition. Everywhere you turn online, there is discourse about this app. Most of the discourse is a quizzical wonder as to why Facebook would even bother (especially because many people think that it is inferior to Instagram’s capabilities).

Facebook Camera is not for you.

If you have Instagram, odds are that Facebook Camera is not for you. If you read this blog, odds are that Facebook Camera is not for. Facebook wants more and more people taking and sharing pictures (one of the biggest and most important functionalities of the online social network), and they’re smart enough to know that trying to get more and more people to join Instagram (another online social network) is probably a lot harder than launching a camera app that automatically syncs up to your Facebook profile. Facebook’s new camera app is for everybody else. It’s not for us.

It’s a mobile world.

You know it. I know it. Facebook knows it. Putting the IPO issues to the side and the many challenges that the company will now face as a public one, Facebook Camera demonstrates that the company is both serious about mobile and that it’s going to do everything it can to move forward fast. This speed is crucial because we are quickly leaving the browser-based/web-based Internet as we have known it to date, into a world of hyper-connected individuals who are highly untethered (no more fixed stations).

Facebook Camera is for everyone.

Will it be a raging success? It’s way too early to call. Should Facebook have simply integrated Instagram? Who knows? Regardless, this camera app has allowed them to take another step into the mobile world with something that everyone – who is already connected on Facebook – can use (in a very fast and simple way). It’s hard to see a downside in this move. My only critical comments are for those online who are quick to judge as if everything and anything that is released should be aimed at the early adopters or more sophisticated users. Remember: the majority of people use the cameras that came with their mobile devices. The majority are not early adopters. The majority are not all that sophisticated with their technology. If Facebook Camera makes it dead easy to take, play with and share photos, this could become a runaway success…

Whether us eager beavers like it or not.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.