Instagram Through the Lens of Diffusion Theory
An innovation that spread at a fast rate is the social media app Instagram, created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Instagram was released on October 6, 2010 for iPhones and in April 2012 for Androids. The app is a social networking system that allows people to share photos and videos through the app. These photos and videos can be publicly shared or only shared by accepted followers. Instagram quickly grew to become one of the most popular social media apps in the world.
How did Instagram grow so quickly? Lets start the explanation off by discussing Instagram's history. In 2009, Kevin Systrom was working at a travel recommendations startup, known as Nextstop. While working at Nextstop, Systrom learned how to code, despite having no formal training in computer science. The coding led Systrom to create a prototype of a web app called Burbn, which allowed users to check-in, post their plans, and share photos. Location-based check-in apps were very popular in 2009, but the photo-sharing feature of Burbn made the app very unique.
In March 2010, Systrom attended a party for a startup based in Silicon Valley, known as Hutch. Systrom met two capitalists at the party and showed them the prototype of his app. Systrom met up with the capitalists again after the party to discuss further details about Burbn. The meeting made Systrom decide to quit his job and put all of his investment into Burbn. Systrom raised $500,000 in seed funding for the app within two weeks, which allowed Systrom to build a team of people to help make Burbn more successful.
The first person to join Systrom's team was Mike Krieger, who knew Systrom from their time as college students at Stanford University. Together, Systrom and Krieger reassessed Burbn and decided to focus on taking pictures on mobile devices. The two men studied photography apps that were popular during the time, such as Hipstamatic. The Hipstamatic app stood out to them because a lot of people were using it at the time and the app allowed filters to be applied on photographs. Although, Hipstamatic lacked social media qualities, so Systrom and Krieger wanted to create something more complex. The men wanted to create an app with Hipstamatic's photograph qualities and Facebook's social media qualities.
After deciding what features they wanted in their app, Systrom and Krieger decided to rename Burbn Instagram, combining the words instant and telegram. The men focused on improving Instagram's photo sharing experience and then gave it to friends to evaluate the app's performance. After fine tuning the app and resolving software errors, Instagram officially launched. The app had 25,000 users in one day, had been downloaded 100,000 times by the end of the week, and now has over 1 billion users.
So, how did Instagram become so popular? The reason for the app's popularity is because the app has been perfected over the years. Instagram has taken concepts from multiple apps and has perfected these concepts.
For example, Instagram took the app Hipstamatic's filter concept and applied a variety of filters and boarders for their users to use on pictures from their phone. Instagram also took Snapchat's story concept, where users can share their photos and videos in their story selection, allowing all their friends to view them within 24 hours. Three years after Snapchat released stories, Instagram released stories in 2016, which allows users to share photos and videos publicly or to friends within 24 hours.
Another concept Instagram took was the app Vine's video concept. Vine offered 6-second videos, which inspired Instagram to launch a 15-second video feature in 2013. Lastly, Instagram took Facebook's concepts of sharing photos, as well as interacting with other people's photos. If Facebook didn't exist, Instagram wouldn't have been created because Instagram's social media concepts were the most inspired by Facebook. Instagram has become so popular because the app has taken multiple ideas from other apps to become more successful.
Even though Instagram has grown at such a fast rate and is used by millions of people, some people don't use the app. The reasoning behind this is because popular social media apps, such as Instagram take away a person's privacy and can negatively impact people's mental health. A person can learn a lot about another person and their lifestyle just by looking at their Instagram. Although, some people don't want others knowing everything about their life and would rather stay away from social media to keep their life more private. Instagram can also negatively impact people's mental health because the app can lead to negative comparisons. Looking at other people's posts on social media can cause people to feel insecure about themselves because they believe that person looks more attractive and lives a more fulfilled life than them. Some people don't use Instagram or other popular social media apps because they want to live a private life without comparing themselves to others online.
Instagram transformed from Burbn to Instagram through the lens of Diffusion Theory. Thanks to Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram launched in 2010 and has grown at an extremely fast rate due to using concepts from other apps. Instagram has been perfected over the years and is now used by millions of people all over the world. Even though some people don't have Instagram due to privacy and mental health concerns, the positives outweigh the negatives. From posting pictures and videos to filters to stories to interactions with friends, Instagram has it all. Today, Instagram is the second most used social media app behind Facebook and continues to grow all around the world.
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