Oh good, more selfies.
Instagram has surpassed more than 300 million users, doubling its membership in just over a year.
The app, which has a stream of more than 70 million photos and videos per day, now has more users than Twitter (284 million), proving once again your friends would rather see a picture of your dinner than read about it in 140 characters or less.
“Over the past four years, what began as two friends and a dream has grown into a global community,” CEO Kevin Systrom said on the Instagram blog. “We’re thrilled to watch this community thrive and witness the amazing connections people make over shared passions and journeys.”
Systrom also said Instagram will provide measures to insure authenticity of accounts users follow with “badges” for celebrities, athletes and brands that will roll out soon. This follows last month’s launch of a people tab on Instagram’s “Explore” page to highlight interesting or popular accounts.
Instagram has also been actively purging spammers and fake accounts to “improve your experience,” Systrom said.
The Instagram experience has made us all photographers. We share our selfies (full disclosure, I did one like a week ago), cute dogs and cats, well-plated food and the occasional indiscretion.
Instagram has at times usurped more traditional news delivery systems because of a users ability to share instantly, especially in the world’s hot spots, from Egypt to Ferguson, Mo.
It has also been a brand-builder for celebrities, from the Kardashians to Justin Bieber, by some reports the Instagramer with the largest following at 23.5 million. Some fine artists have used Instagram to successfully lift them out of obscurity.
Professional photographers have enjoyed a somewhat strained relationship with Instagram, many fearful of losing their rights to photos, but others clearly happy at how it can raise their profile and get them more jobs.
Photographer Richard Koci Hernandez told Time magazine last week he would delete more than 1,000 images posted on Instagram in part because he felt it compromised urges to explore other photographic directions when he felt responsible to give his audience what they expected.
Plus, “I’ve always felt that my photographs shouldn’t live forever,” Koci Hernandez said. “But it seems to me that the Internet is increasingly allowing things to live forever.”
