Instagram launched on 6 October 2010 as an iPhone-only app for square photos with retro filters and reached a million users by December. Its filters, such as X-Pro II, Lomo-fi and Earlybird, made every phone photo look like a faded 1970s print.
- Domain in 2010
- instagr.am
- Launched
- 6 October 2010
- Founders
- Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger
- Owner in 2010
- Burbn, Inc. (private)
- Status today
- Acquired
What people used it for
- Sharing square photos with filters
- Following friends' photo feeds
- Cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Tumblr
Interface characteristics
- Brown Polaroid-style camera icon
- Square 612-pixel photos
- Simple feed with heart and comment buttons
- No web profiles at launch
Notable features
- Filters like X-Pro II, Lomo-fi and Earlybird
- One million users in about two months
What happened later
Facebook bought Instagram for about $1 billion in April 2012. It now has well over a billion users.
Archived on the Wayback Machine
Archived pages open on web.archive.org (Internet Archive). They are historical captures, not part of this exhibit.
Related
- ProductVerified
iPhone 4
Retina display, FaceTime, and the antenna you could not hold
Announced on 7 June 2010 and on sale on 24 June, the iPhone 4 introduced the 960-by-640 Retina display, a front camera for FaceTime video calls, a 5-megapixel camera with 720p video, and a...
- WebsiteSupported
Flickr
Five billion photos, and the iPhone as top camera
Flickr passed five billion uploaded photos in September 2010 and was the serious photographer's social network: albums called sets, Creative Commons licences, groups for every camera, and Explore's...
- SocialVerified
Instagram launches on the iPhone
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released a free app for square, filtered photos; it gained 25,000 users on its first day and a million by December.
