The Signal to Noise Ratio
For almost 5 years, I worked as an “In-House Technician” for Comcast, aka “The Cable Guy.” For those that followed me on Instagram in those days, I had many stories to share about the customers I would interact with, the problems I would have with them, and so on and so forth. It wasn’t a bad job, it just wasn’t a great job. For me, the thing I had to deal with the most was something that was called, “Signal to Noise Ratio.” Not a day would go by that I wasn’t trying to tackle some customer’s SNR problems. So what is SNR? Essentially, Comcast sends its signal down the line at a particular level, if there is a break or cut in the cable line (or various other ways), other companies wireless signal will get inside and create noise. Their signal is being broadcast on the exact same frequency as Comcast. There was conflict. There was turmoil. Ultimately leaving a very unsatisfied customer. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, this SNR problem. But I’ve been thinking about it with Instagram. The signal, being those on Instagram who want to create and share their photography. The noise, being well, noise. And the noise has increasingly become more and more what we see on the Popular page. Excuse me, the “Explore” page.
Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing chief said back in April that Instagram has now “jumped the shark.” That same month was when Instagram users saw 5 million new users sign up, all with an Android phone. I’m sure one could argue that Schiller was being over-protective of Apple, and Apple’s war against Android. But, upon further investigation I found that Schiller had more to say about his comment of Instagram. He said, “Instagram is a great app and community. That hasn’t changed. But one of the things I really liked about Instagram was that it was a small community of early adopters sharing their photographs. Now that it has grown much larger, the signal to noise ratio is different. That isn’t necessarily good or bad, it’s just not what I originally had fun with.” I should add, Schiller who at one point was a huge Instagram fan and user, has since deleted his account. When I read that, I wanted to exclaim, “Eureka!” I couldn’t believe that Schiller used the same SNR term as I had been using these last few weeks. More importantly though, I found the term very proper. There was always noise on Instagram, but these days, it’s been a crazy amount. I’ve even been seeing those “Free Best Buy Gift Certificate” accounts pop up and spam mine and other people’s pictures. I suppose it was only a matter of time before that happened. So maybe Instagram did jump the shark. Maybe their hay day is in the past. Maybe they’re just going to be another myspace. Sure, myspace is still on the internet, but who uses it anymore?
Like Schiller, I’ve seen a ton of people delete their Instagram accounts. I’m sure a lot of my friends have their own reasons. I’ve heard a lot of them exclaim different reasons. I read an online article with Philippe Gonzalez, founder of the Instagramers blog and community. He said that when the Android users joined on, it became far more difficult for users to hit that prized, Popular page. Ahem, excuse me, the Explore page. He also said that he received many emails from IG users complaining of the quality of the Popular page. He said that “Instagram’s earlier users were a little disillusioned with the influx of Android owners (many of whom, Gonzalez suggested, are teens sharing their lives rather than creating compelling photography) and the changes they brought to the Popular page.” I’d say that was an understatement. All around. All of this and with the whole Facebook takeover, people continue to delete their accounts and are trying out other apps like, EyeEm and Tadaa. I’ve tried them both… Meh… So is deleting your account because you’re not hitting that elusive Popular page anymore, really worth it? Are people just being frustrated?
Instagram apparently has heard the complaints from people. They gave Instagram a much-needed facelift recently. They changed a few things. None of which were any of the suggestions long-time users have had for the app. When I first saw that the Popular page was now being called the “Explore” page, I’ll admit it, I got excited. Maybe, just maybe, the serious flaws that the Popular page had would be fixed with the Explore page. After a few days of “exploring” it, I realized that nothing had changed. I was curious enough to see what it actually takes to get to the Explore page. Gonzalez said that the Explore page was supposed to in part, to pacify those long-term users that were complaining. I long stopped complaining about the Popular page, but I am a long-term user. So I posted photos as I usually did, nothing. Hmm… I even tried adding those ridiculous tags I see everywhere. Nope. Nothing. Well, ok, nothing has changed.
Again I ask, is deleting our accounts really the answer? It seems to be the trend lately. Has the signal to noise ratio become too ridiculous for you? For me, I’m going to stick it out for awhile and see where it goes. For the most part, I just haven’t found an app that really even compares with Instagram. I’m hoping that things will change. Deep down inside, I’m pulling for Instagram. I believe it can evolve into something even better. I don’t want to believe that it is just myspace #2. So if you’ve been on the fence lately about Instagram, I say, just hang out awhile longer. It has to get better. We’ve invested a lot of time into this app. Don’t just give up so easily. Daddy didn’t raise no quitter. 
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Ryan, wonderful blog! SNR is really a perfect term for the stuff going on on IG lately…I just keep it simple, stick to the people whose pictures I love, check out user whose comments I like, and basically ignore the Popular Explore page. And for the fun of it and since I got not much of a cleavage, I even posted a shoe pic! ….maybe should’ve chosen the badass high heels instead of the rubber boots to make it on the pop page
Ryan, I hear you on the SNR. And, I am one of those 5 million Android users late to the Instagram party simply because the iPhone was not available on the carrier I had at the time. It was also two months late after I switched carriers and had no better choice than an Android. Prior to Instagram opening up to Android I could use apps like Statigram or Webstagram to view my friends images and like or comment. I could see the Popular wall. The truth, that popular wall looked a mess before Android set foot on the scene. In fact the popular “wall” of other social photo apps was a mix of mess, art, photography and just plain human culture.
Now that I have had my taste of owning a phone that allows me to take a decent resolution image, edit on the phone and share it, I’m a happier photographer and artist. Once I had a go of Instagram, I wasn’t impressed. It wouldn’t have made a difference if I had an iPhone. The difference to me about IG vs other sites I used was about people, community and finding more of what I wanted to see through tags. so, all I did was curate my Signal To Noise Ratio rather then let an ego cry about the popular wall. I will never make that wall no matter what phone I own. There are far too many talented image creators out there with a different vision and ability to express it in processing or those that live in beautiful places I can only dream of to take those awesome sunset shots etc. My vision is to shoot something I care about and share it with the expectation of at least one “like.” At the end of the day, if I have taken an image with my Android or my Canon7D and I’m staying true to my vision, I can rest at night and be psyched about the next day (no popular wall needed).
I have learned most recently to use these popular wall deals as a gauge to get the pulse of what a broad audience may be more inclined to “like” but it also involves audience (follower ratio) and skill. I don’t think anyone should delete their IG account over adding more users or because the app opens to other technology platforms. That behavior says a few things about the character of the user depending on the reasons they may or may not communicate. I mean, even Flickr has noise. what you and I may consider noise on any image app could be beauty to someone else or become popular because that is what the larger audience needs at the moment. Bottom line, no matter the application, we have to curate that noise by choosing our signals and surrounding our feeds with WHO we want to see or appreciate. Leave that dang Explore wall for those that somehow feel entitled to recognition or superiority because their ego makes more noise than signal.
I don’t point the finger at Android users – the writing was on the wall (or indeed scrawled across the cleavage) of the popular page from the day I joined.
The SNR is definitely on the downward slope. I can totally understand how it’s pushing people away, but for me, some of that signal is too precious to throw away, no matter how loud the din.
Great article – excellent food for thought.
My most recent observation of the explore page is that it seems to include way more big business. I avoid it like the plague but I have checked a couple times recently out of curiosity. There were two artistic images, three adolescent self-portraits, and the rest appeared to be brands. Nike, Starbucks, Marc Jacobs. This makes me wonder, is there a bit of favoritism going on for major Facebook advertisers?
If the audience they are trying to reach includes me, they are wasting their time. I’m not leaving IG any time soon but I do not hold any hope for Instagram to move away from finding a way to be a commercial success. It is just common sense.
Ultimately, I think we all are responsible for finding a group of like-minded people and observe the tags that get exposure to them. I’m a fan of several, including colors of the week & we are juxt. But that works for me because I enjoy the community and seeing other artist’s work as much as sharing my own. For someone who is only there to share, I imagine the experience could be pretty hollow. My kids would be much more interested in the fingernails and fashion. About the only way I think IG could help users with this would be to create channels like Pandora where it would be much easier to get a feature and find images of interest if they were filtered to a given subject or style. There are at least 20 texture hash tags. A channel could draw from all of those different tags but filter out flowers, skies, etc. Basically make it easier to tune into a specific signal and weed out the noise. Great term, by the way!
I like your annalagy used. It’s fitting. I never visit the popular page….or the explore page or whatever it’s called. Then again, even when my photos used to hit the pop page I never looked at it then either. I just don’t find any inspiration there (side note: it annoys the hell out of me that I have to go to the ‘explore page’ section to do a search now).
I am actually close to deleting my IG account. For many reasons but the main being that it doesn’t hold the sense of community it once did for me. So nothing to do with the explorer page but still relevant to how the app has changed as a whole from the start I guess……
Wonderfully well-written piece! I really don’t care about the iPhone versus Android arguments in the least. I use EyeEm, Tadaa and mobli but nine have the ease or feel that IG has continued to keep over the others. I do find myself liking EyeEm more and more because of the more quality of the particpants (iphoneographers) which is what initially drove me to join IG. I feel blessed to have had some great comments, inspirations and tutorials of such other users on IG which has made me look completely different at not only mobilephotography, but photography and the processes and tools in general. I am interested to see what InstaFocus brungs to the table and I was curious as to what othersnthink on this as well?
SNR in what? On the pop page? I understand that a lot of larger IG handles have benefitted from the pop page, perhaps more so in the past. But do you ever go to the pop/explore page to find other accounts? Did you ever? Are you actively looking for new accounts to follow?
I don’t think the SNR changes at all, because most people reading this blog primarily follow (1) their follow list, (2) the Following page, (3) hashtags. SNR *might* go down for (3)– I personally don’t know, because I don’t have time to scroll through every single picture that’s hashtagged “blackandwhite” or “street.” Following ~150 people and seeing that their Likes are is already a lot of information. None of which is in any way affected by the increase in the number of accounts.
I ask: Where, exactly, has the SNR changed for you personally? I really don’t get it.
I used to be inspired by the pop page. I always liked to go make a tour on it… We used to find great streams through that tool
This is an amazing and full of truth article.. And I couldn’t agree more and feel the same way as you do…!
I felt like everything changed last summer, when Justin Bieber joined in.
When instagram started to be mixed with business and promotion, everything took an other turn and it just became like twitter for them. Now when I open the explorer page, all I see are pictures taken of the internet (Pinterest is made for that!) of One Direction, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and other things… We are already seeing those in every magazine and everywhere on the net..! I mean, as long as people share their own pictures, I’m okay with it, that is what instagram is made for.
I never looked at the pop page… Never. But having two accounts, when you log out of one, it takes you straight to the “explore” page before you can log in. So you’re forced to see it. And now they’ve moved the search area there… Forced to see it again. It was on a pretty bad downward spiral before the droids joined though. I feel like deleting my account sometimes, but until something better comes along I guess I’ll stick it out. There’s one I use that could be making a big move soon…