Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Twitter ---> Instagram ---> FoodSpotting


Soraya Darabi on Good Morning America
The Next Web: Instagram and Foodspotting most popular iPhone apps at SXSW
Instagram Magic
Instagram Wave
Does Google Have An Innovation Problem?

FoodSpotting Is The Next Instagram: that should be the rewording of my blog post from a long time ago: FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare.

Looks Like FoodSpotting Rocked Austin
Going Backwards: FoodSpotting, FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook
Fractals And FoodSpotting
Food/Social = Physics, Coding = Mathematics

But if Instagram is younger than FoodSpotting, how can FoodSpotting be the next Instagram? The thing is, this is not a chronological list. This is about space, not time.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Path is a satellite company to Facebook. Quora is a sibling company to Twitter: both deal with information graphs. Instagram and FourSquare are sibling companies. Instagram being the next Twitter makes more sense for FoodSpotting. Both are to do with the dominant human sense: sight.

In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, there were five Pandavas and 100 Kauravas. Instagram and FourSquare might end up with three more siblings. But FoodSpotting will end up with 99 other siblings, or at least that's what Soraya Darabi said on February 7 at the FoodSpotting panel the Monday morning of Social Media Week.

As you go more micro, many more verticals emerge.

Project Noah: FoodSpotting's Sibling Company
Image representing Foodspotting as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
As to what the next FoodSpotting will be, I don't know it yet, I don't see it yet, I can't visualize yet. I haven't tried too hard. But it's a tough nut to crack in the first place.

It feels like splitting the atom. You break the cell, you end up with the atom. You meet protons, neutrons, electrons. You split the proton, you end up with even littler particles.

FoodSpotting need not occupy many verticals. Food is the royal vertical in the space, I have maintained.

FourSquare has not done anything wrong. It did not miss out. It did not slacken. It will continue to be a sexy app, it will grow. It has a bright future. But FourSquare's competition was never going to come from Facebook. It is always the nimble startup that will show up out of nowhere.

FoodSpotting has to watch out for copycats. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery goes the old saying. GroupOn knows. But you still have to watch out for market share.

Having a first mover advantage is a big plus. It is not like I am going to tweet a few different places. Facebook has a tremendous first mover advantage similarly.

Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies

It is good to see Hashable, GroupMe and Kik do well. Hashable also has a little bit of a next Twitter feel to it. It could be that third sibling to Instagram and FourSquare.

It is official, people. The two winners of SXSW 2011 are Instagram and FoodSpotting. I expect them to further consolidate their positions in 2012. And I expect Hashable, GroupMe and Kik to also emerge strong.

The thing to note in the pictorial is that FoodSpotting is neck and neck with Instagram itself. That is really something. Instagram is snap easy to use. But FoodSpotting might be the stickier app, an app you actually take to your mom.

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