One way Trojans, malware, and other general unpleasantries infiltrate Android devices is through the most popular apps. In order to maximize the potential carnage, the most sought-after titles downloaded by millions are often singled-out as easy pickings.
Instagram's rise from their early beginnings as a company called Burbn simply trying something new to the image sharing giant of today is nothing short of impressive. In a mere 17 months, the company had a fantastic exit; it was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion, a company synonymous with the word 'startup'. And, throughout these 17 months, Instagram blew through various milestones very quickly. The first Instagram app which was launched in 2010 had 200,000 users in the first week. This number jumped to 1.75 million by February, then 4 million in May. Staggering growth, really, for what on the surface is such a simple app.
There was something of a bombshell greeting me when I awoke today, and it's probably fair to say that it is still sinking in. In fact, it is proving something of a big deal for many across the internet, if a quick skim of my Twitter and Facebook feeds are anything to go by.
Now that Facebook has splashed $1 billion on Instagram, users of the photo sharing social network are left with something of a quandary. With Facebook itself already finding itself to be hated by much of the online community for perceived privacy violations, some are already fearing the worst for Instagram.
The free of charge Instagram photo sharing application has been going from strength to strength over the last couple of years and is widely regarded as one of the most successful apps available on the App Store, something that was recently recognized by Apple when they named Instagram as their app of the year.
The premise of photo-sharing apps for mobile devices is the same: take a photo, apply an effect to it, share it online on the app’s own network or on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
There are a bunch of image-only social apps out in the wild just now, but none seem to have captured the imagination quite like Instagram for iPhone.
Instagram is one of the most popular social networking apps on the iPhone. It's certainly the most popular social networking app to revolve around photography, and that's across any platform that we can think of. The fact that there is no Android version of the app has long been a sore point for those of the Google persuasion, but as we know, Instagram is working to rectify that ASAP.
When Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom first received funding for their 'Burbn' project, I don't think they could have imagined the rollercoaster ride they were about to embark on which led them to changing the name of their project to Instagram, launching in the iPhone App Store in 2010 and quickly becoming the proud parents of one of the most loved and used applications around today.
Instagram is one of those beautifully simple concept that has millions of amateur and professional photographers alike completely hooked. You take a photo, edit, and share. And that, as they say, is that.
