Today, I am going to share with you the story of Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom who tasted success after overcoming numerous difficulties. Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform, which is very popular all over the world. It is easily available on Android, Apple and Windows cellphones.
The history of Instagram dates back to the year 2010, when Mike and Kevin opted to concentrate on their HTML5 project “Burbn”. Kevin closed a seed funding round from Andreessen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures on 5th of March 2010. The prominent faces of Instagram include Jessica Zollman who is a Community Evangelist, Shayne Sweeney who is an engineer and Josh Riedel who is a Community Manager.
Instagram introduced hashtags in the year 2011 for the users for sharing pictures etc. The android version of Instagram was introduced in the year 2012 and it was downloaded more than one million times in a day.
In the year 2012, the popular social networking site Facebook took over Instagram for a whopping one billion dollars. But this popular platform also had its share of controversies. When Instagram renewed its Terms of Service in 2012 allowing itself the right to sell users photos to third parties without notification to the subscribers invited a lot of criticism. As a result of which they had to issue a statement and they eliminated the disputed terms. But this controversy affected its user base as theyshifted to other similar platforms.
Currently, Emily White is the COO of Instagram. Now Instagram is also planning to focus on advertising. It also announced a feature named “Instagram Direct” which permits its users to send pictures to particular people only.
Instagram was also in news when the BBC investigated regarding the role of Instagram in sales of illicit drugs. After investigation they found that some of the users were posting images of drugs and completing transactions through instant messaging apps. Such type of hashtags were blocked by the company and they clarified that they have a clear set of rules for what is and is not permitted.
They also added that they encourage people who come across illegal or inappropriate content to report it to them by using the built-in reporting tools next to every picture, video or comment, so that they can take action. They further added that people can’t buy things on Instagram, it is simply a place where people share pictures and videos.