According to several published reports, Instagram now has over 200,000 members. On Silicon Valley-centric Q&A service Quora, when someone asked if more than 750,000 pictures have been uploaded to Instagram, co-founder Kevin Systrom said that the “true figure is far north of that.” According to a report in the New York Times, the service has been seeing about a photo uploaded to its service every second.
My own enthusiasm for the app aside, the two-man company based in San Francisco has its work cut out for it. For now, the service has the tinge of an early-adopter hit, as reflected by the popularity amongst SF-based bloggers, news media and a demographic generically known as hipster. But there’s potential for this app to become something larger — perhaps a visually driven social network.
In many ways it’s the right product at the right time; wireless broadband is booming and smartphones like iPhones (and iPod touches) are everywhere. More importantly, as a society we are feeling a tad nostalgic.
It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.
Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr – it’s all as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.
Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free?
