Thinking about building an app

[D.C Young]

I personally think for a person in your position the whole software patent, nda thing is a waste of time. A patent isn't going to stop them from taking your idea. You have no money to defend it. Here's a breakdown of how much it costs to defend a patent: How much is that patent lawsuit going to cost you?

You're going to spend 3-4 years to get that patent and then waiting on them to infringe on it then another 5 years in out of court suing them? Total costs in the millions of dollars?

Instagram just verbatim copied snapchats stories feature.

yeah those motherfukkers will bleed me dry and I dont got shyt to begin with

 

[D.C Young]

I've looked into it myself and I understand its competitive but so is any other field with a high upside. OP's idea might be a long shot but that doesn't mean he should just give-up before he gets started.

nah definitely wont do that....i'm a very optimistic person by nature

but I'm also realistic and will weigh out the risk vs reward scenario

 

[At30wecashout]

Program the addon yourself or find someone who can.

come up with a catchy name.

Set up an eye pleasing website to download the addon

share the program with reddit, the coli, etc.

If the idea takes off, it takes off.

sooner or later, you'll get a cease and desist from instagram.

a year or two later, they'll debo your idea and implement it themselves.

If you're lucky, you might get an unpaid internship offer from a tech company.

After that, you'll be back on the coli bytching about getting fukked.

You'll get 17 daps on the thread and some funny Jordan cry gifs as consolation.

Goddamn that got bleak quick!

 

[FSP]

I've looked into it myself and I understand its competitive but so is any other field with a high upside. OP's idea might be a long shot but that doesn't mean he should just give-up before he gets started.

Not give up, but maybe try a different idea or a different way of executing it.

You don't want to spend potentially years developing something only to shut it down after a week especially since OP already stated his goal was to make money with it

 

[L&HH]

I've looked into it myself and I understand its competitive but so is any other field with a high upside. OP's idea might be a long shot but that doesn't mean he should just give-up before he gets started.

This isn't about competition. Your not competing with anyone trying to make money like this from another tech company. They simply won't allow you to do it. Competition would be building a service that rivals Instagram not relying on their api to make money, which they won't allow. The only way to make money in conjunction with Instagram is by using their app as a social media outlet to advertise and promote a product or service.

Here's a guy who thought he could do something like this using Google's api. He "wasted" 3 years and quit his software job so those 3 years also cost him about $250k in earnings. This guy actually had exchanges with YouTube and they never offered to buy it. The most they offered was the ability to come to their offices and interview with Youtube's music department. He didn't want a job, frankly I don't know how he planned on monetizing this at all. Eventually YouTube revoked his api privileges effectively killing the service. YouTube didn't even knock his service off as far as I know and he had 300,000 users.

How YouTube killed an extension with 300,000 users

 

[Loop Ba$eCrawler]

The poor mans copyright.

This has been used in the music biz for a long time

Yeah, used to do it when I started making beats like 17 yrs ago. I don't know if it ever worked in court but a book I read about copyrights said it doesn't work in court.

However.. In game design school last year they said a piece of work posted to social media or documented through a legitimate website can act as proof if someone steals your idea.

 

[onlylno]

lol but forreal though

are you saying that I can actually create the addon or the widget and have instagram users implement it on their page

themselves without necessarily getting the permission from Instagram?

because I'm not really interested in building a instagram like app and competing with them

because dethroning them is damn near impossible.

I'm more interested in using the Instagram platform to implement my idea

whether that's through pitching my idea to Instagram or some other way

I don't know the specifics of your idea but If it can work as a browser addon.
Make it available for chrome or something.
Yep that's the best way to go about it.

Especially since

A) you don't want to develop your own photo app.


B) you want to use the Instagram brand to make money.

 

[Jean Jacket]

Yeah theres papers that your lawyer draws up that any company you meet with has to sign saying that they won't jack your idea if they don't buy it. The technical name escapes me right now but its like a confidentiality agreement but for businesses

NDA. Non disclosure agreement.

 

[D.C Young]

I don't know the specifics of your idea but If it can work as a browser addon.
Make it available for chrome or something.
Yep that's the best way to go about it.

Especially since

A) you don't want to develop your own photo app.


B) you want to use the Instagram brand to make money.

is it possible to sell this add on and make money off of it before Instagram jacks the idea or shut it down?

by selling it, I mean selling it to Instagram users who are interested in adding this feature to their picture?

 

[Flywin Lannister]

right, that's exactly why I was thinking

I was thinking that I was going to have to develop this idea myself before I even approached them

but why can I not just walk up to them and introduce my idea

(under the right circumstances, such as a signed NDA or something)

For the same reasons rappers can't just walk into a record company's building, get a meeting with the CEO or President, rap for them and then get a million dollar deal:

A company like Facebook is a billion dollar company and will not talk with people who approach them with ideas (as mentioned before) to avoid getting sued and losing millions, if not getting 'Gawkered' (sued, lose, go broke).

This is reason 1 why they pay attention to small/young companies who have a new product that is doing well.

The 2nd reason: they hired and hire really smart people who can come up with ideas and many of their ideas get executed and added to the product (e.g. when Facebook first started you could not add videos, share links, tag people in posts etc. but now you can).

The third reason: anybody can have an idea. But executing the idea and proving that there are people who want to use this product is something else.

This is how Instagram and Whatsapp and many more companies you never even heard of (because doing well can be 'we got 100.000 users in 2 months after launch' it is about potential too) got bought by Facebook. Facebook loved what they saw and approached the companies.

(I think it's great that you are interested in making an app @D.C Young - don't let any comment stop you)

 

[MalikX]

Learn how to code and build it yourself. Easier said than done.

It's going to take you a year before you're even able to write rudimentary code.

 

[Flywin Lannister]

is it possible to sell this add on and make money off of it before Instagram jacks the idea or shut it down?

by selling it, I mean selling it to Instagram users who are interested in adding this feature to their picture?

This is not possible.

Instagram controls Instagram. Specifically: the app you download is called a 'client'. The client gets sent by Instagram to the App Stores (iOS, Google Play etc.). Anything that users see is in this client.
If Instagram wants users to see a new feature, they have to put this in a new version of the client (this is why you get updates: new features and bug fixes are usually in updates).

If you go to the App Store, search Instagram, you can see what version is available and can even see 'New in this version'.

 

[D.C Young]

You guys are dropping great info, I'm learning allot, keep it coming


by the way, I was reminded of that short video service Vine that was popular a few years ago

from what I understand, I dont think it was created by Twitter

but it was able to become popular through Twitter's platform and being integrated in their system

without Twitter necessarily endorsing it I think

Not sure, I'm doing research on it now

Vine (service) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Scuti]

Companies do not buy 'ideas' or 'features', they buy companies.

They will then integrate what that company has built into their product as a feature.

Also Instagram is owned by Facebook, so homie ultimately that is who you'd be dealing with.

i read that in Tywin's voice for some reason

 

[Flywin Lannister]

Learn how to code and build it yourself. Easier said than done.

It's going to take you a year before you're even able to write rudimentary code.

This would be great - if you could make that investment. Alternatively paying someone to code your idea could be a good option too - if you agree on a fixed price and 'final' product.