Instagram Launches

2010

Date: 6 October 2010 · Place: San Francisco, California · Figures: Kevin Systrom, co-founder · Mike Krieger, co-founder · Mark Zuckerberg, acquirer · Tags: Platform, Mobile First, Filter 01. Twenty-Five Thousand Users On Day One On 6 October 2010 Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger release Instagram on the iOS App Store. The app, a pared-down pivot from their location-based product Burbn, registers twenty-five thousand users on its first day. By December it has one million. On 9 April 2012 Facebook acquires Instagram for one billion dollars in cash and stock, the largest acquisition of a venture-backed startup with no revenue to that point. 02. The Filter As Native Vocabulary Instagram's twenty-eight launch filters, X-Pro II, Valencia, Earlybird, Inkwell, supply the first mass-market vocabulary for image post-processing as social currency. Before Instagram, the photo filter is a Photoshop specialty. After Instagram, it is a verb. The platform is also the proof that mobile-first social media can outscale the desktop web. It anticipates Snapchat, TikTok, and the entire post-2012 social-app economy. Tumblr, optimized for desktop, never makes the transition. Sources • TechCrunch, 'Instagram Launches With The Hope Of Igniting Mobile Photography' (6 October 2010) • The New York Times, 'Facebook Buys Instagram for $1 Billion' (9 April 2012) • Sarah Frier, 'No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram' (Simon & Schuster, 2020)