Instagram gets it right. A simple, lightweight service with a clean, user-friendly design. Behind the scenes only a small, dedicated team. Their innovative work has led to a deeply engaged community brimming with loyal members. Still, the company’s direction remains uncertain. In light of the New Year, I’d like to share some thoughts on the future of Instagram.

In February, Google announced that it would deploy an experimental Gigabit internet network to a “small number of trial locations across the United States.” The fiber optic network will deliver speeds more than 100 times faster than what Americans have access to today. We want this in Portland.

From time to time, when you search for something (on Google) that is being talked about on twitter you may see people’s tweets. That’s because Google now injects real-time content from twitter. This “enhancement” has yet to be useful to me personally, but not surprising in the least.