Happy Monday everyone!
Last issue we looked at Facebook, the behemoth of the social network world. This week we will look at one of it’s biggest swallows, that has once threatened to unseat Facebook.
Instagram, as of 2019, is one of the top 10 social networks in the world with more than 1 billion monthly active users. Though it isn’t an independent company anymore but it does contribute to a significant portion in its parent company’s valuation.
Founded in 2010 as Burbn, a location startup, it quickly pivoted into a mobile based photo sharing social network. Let’s now look into the bits from Instagram’s past.
The year is 2010
Burbn's Funding Goes Down Smooth. Baseline, Andreessen Back Stealthy Location Startup.
March, 2010
For the past several weeks, there have been quite a few whispers around the web about a new service called Burbn. Besides having a great name, the service is apparently in a very hot space right now: location-based services. I say “apparently,” because the service is still very much a stealth project. But it’s not so stealth that they can’t get a seed round of funding.
At this point it was just a “stealthy” location based startup. That’s all the world knew.
Drinking the Burbn: a new location game
April, 2010
I was introduced to Burbn by a friend who claimed, "it's like a Foursquare game". I had to give it a try. There isn't much on the site there now except an invite form, a help page, and a jobs email address. […] Burbn just makes it dead simple. You say you're gonna be somewhere at a certain time, and Burbn puts you there, and you can even feed Foursquare at the same time.
Okay, now we know it’s a “Foursquare game”. It had points, achievements, friends. A gamified social network.
Distilled From Burbn, Instagram Makes Quick Beautiful Photos Social
September, 2010
Unlike Burbn, Instagram is neither a location-based app (though that is one component), nor is it HTML5-based. But it did spring out of the way co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger saw people using Burbn. That is: quick, social sharing — and a desire to share photos from places. That’s the foundation of Instagram.
There it was. The pivot from a location based startup “burbn” to “Instagram” a photo sharing social network.
Instagram Catapults to 1 Million Registered Users
December, 2010
The free iPhone app hit the App Store in early October, gaining an impressive 100,000 signups in its first week. Clearly, that trend has remained steady, as just 10 weeks after its debut, the app has passed the 1 million registered user mark.
There it is. Reaching 1m users within 10 weeks of launching. That is an impressive feat considering smartphones aren’t as ubiquitous as now then.
Facebook Buys Instagram For $1 Billion, Turns Budding Rival Into Its Standalone Photo App
April, 2012
Facebook has just finished a deal to acquire mobile photo sharing app Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. Instagram will remain an independently branded standalone app that’s separate from Facebook, but the services will increase their ties to each other. The transaction should go through this quarter pending some standard closing procedures
2 years after launching, with 27million users, Instagram was acquired. Facebook saw for what it would be and swallowed it before it could pose a threat.
There it is, the last page for Instagram the company. Instagram the product however, is continuously influencing people’s lives all around the world.
It created entirely new industries, gave birth to influencer culture and without any doubt would have an important place in the history books.
That concludes our issue. Please share with me any feedback you have. mail@avinoth.com. I’d love to hear your opinions / suggestions.