InstaAd

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Instagram is an app that has been becoming extremely popular over the years, especially as smart phones, specifically iPhones, have been falling more regularly into the hands of all sorts of ages. Instagram is an app where pictures are uploaded and often an effect is added to make the picture "better." I, too, have this app. For me, it is a way to keep up with my friends or follow brands or artists I like. For instance, I have pictures with my friends before a concert we went to, pictures of my new dorm room, or a picture I took at home over Fall Break. 

Like I said earlier, I do follow brands and artists I like, which for them is a way of advertising their products or their music, but now Instagram will have all sorts of advertisements in the picture feed, whether you chose to follow them or not. This just goes to show how you truly cannot avoid advertising. Of course no one forced me to download this app and use it countless times a day, but the idea that I started using this as a way to communicate with friends or stay in tune with brands or bands I like and still cannot dodge the advertising bullet amazes me. 

I have to wonder what this will do for the app. Pandora, a music radio website, has an option to pay a subscription so the listener's music isn't interrupted by ads everything three or four songs. Will Instagram do this as well? It's funny to see how far we THINK we're going to steer clear of these annoying interruptions, but of course either way the website or app wins. When we sit there and listen to the ad instead of paying the subscription to get rid of it, we are subject to the advertisers modes of persuasion towards their product or idea. The advertisers pay Pandora or Instagram to have their advertisements on their cite and make money off us as we listen. If we chose the other option, to pay a monthly fee to not have the advertisements, the app or website wins again and benefits from our subscriptions. 

So, when advertisements hit Instagram, which option would you choose?