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The American programmer Kevin Systrom and Brazilian software engineer Mike Krieger were two fellow computer scientists at Stanford University who were also photography enthusiasts. With the evolution of mobile phone technology, the built-in cameras began to be able to take images with a quality close to that of a professional camera. So, Systrom and Krieger saw an opportunity to launch a app to take advantage of the development of the mobile photography market.
His initial idea was to create Burbn, a more complex application with geolocation functions, but they chose to modify the approach and focused on editing and publishing simple photos for the user. Instagram's name comes from the combination of instant camera ('instant camera') and telegram ('telegram'). This nostalgic connotation was also evident in the characteristics of the images on this social network, which were initially edited in square format, like those produced by old Polaroid and Kodak Instamatic cameras.
The launch of Instagram, which was forged without even having a business model, arrived October 6, 2010 from the city of San Francisco, initially only for iOS, the operating system for Apple products. During its first week on the market, the social network registered around 200,000 users, which increased fivefold in three months. The first photo published on Instagram was that of dog from Systrom himself on July 16, 2010.
The co-founder of Twitter and investor in the startup from Instagram, Jack Dorsey, intended to buy the company. However, it ended up in the hands of the competition: six days after the launch of the app for Android devices, in 2012, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the purchase of Instagram for $1 billion, while also offering the founders a degree of administrative autonomy. Systrom and Krieger, whose company had barely exceeded half a billion dollars in market value, accepted the offer but they abandoned their positions in 2018 due to disagreements with the new management. Some consider the purchase of Instagram not only a bargain, but a regulatory failure that has allowed a monopoly led by Zuckerberg's company.
In the years since, Instagram has increased its public interest by adding features characteristic of other fashion apps. It first incorporated the stories, short-form posts inspired by Snapchat. With less success, in 2018 it launched Instagram TV, a section for publishing longer YouTube-style videos. More recently it has included reels, a video feature similar to the phenomenon of TikTok.
With over a billion monthly active users, Instagram is the fourth social network most used in the world, in a sector that Facebook leads with almost three billion. Instagram It is also a platform of interest for companies, especially since the incorporation of advertisements: most of them have a profile on the social network, since the 81% of its users use it at some point to find products and services.
The social network's success, however, has been accompanied by various social and psychological implications for its users. Its popularity frequently makes it a platform for social causes, some of which are not without controversy, such as when thousands of users posted a black image in solidarity with the movement. Black Lives Matter following the murder of African-American George Floyd in 2020. In addition, it has been shown that inappropriate and excessive use of Instagram can have negative consequences for the mental health, especially of the teenagers, derived from cyberbullying, addiction or anxiety about canons of beauty.
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Santander, 1999. He holds a degree in International Relations and Corporate Communication from Antonio de Nebrija University, and a minor in European Studies from the Sorbonne University of Paris. He is passionate about geopolitics, security, and the discovery of other cultures, as well as film, music, and literature.
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