The June 2013 issue of Vanity Fair included a story about the start up and sale of Instagram, The Money Shot, by Kara Swisher, pages 76-82. If you like business stories, read the whole thing. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger, and sold to Facebook for $1B. If you simply don’t understand Instagram, here are the two turning points that answered my question about why people use it:
“Instead of doing a check in that has an optional photo, why don’t we do a photo that has an optional check in?”
and
On a beach walk one day, Nicole (GF) told him (Systrom) that she would be reluctant to use the app he was working on because her pictures would never be as good as the ones a mutual friend took. I (Systrom) said, “Well, you know what he does to those photos, right?” She’s like, “no, he just takes good photos.” I’m like, “No, no, he puts them through filter apps.” She’s like, “well, you guys should probably have filters too, right, then?” I was like, “Huh.”
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