Instagram is eating its own tail

A few weeks ago I wrote my first post for Nurun’s Digital for Real Life blog. I piggybacked on a great article published last year by Nathan Jurgenson and used it to argue that Instagram's popularity might actually cause its demise (as opposed to the recent Facebook acquisition).

What no one seems to be talking about is that Instagram’s continued popularity, not its merger with Facebook, might be the biggest threat to its long-term success. In a long and thoughtful essay published last year at TheSocietyPages.org, Nathan Jurgenson, a PhD. student at the University of Maryland took a careful look at what he calls “faux vintage” photography. […] For Instagram, the challenge is figuring out what happens when their users, through their own enjoyment of the service, drain the last traces of authenticity from it. Printstagr.am, a new service that “develops” your Instagram photos into t-shirts, stickers, posters and minibooks might help turn the tide, as it turns purely digital artifacts into permanent physical keepsakes.

You can read the entire post here.