Media Arts Design : Instagram

What is Instagram?
Instagram is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr and etc. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 16:9 aspect ratio now typically used by mobile device cameras. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012. Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Support was originally available for only the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch; in April 2012, support was added for Android camera phones running2.2 Froyo. Originally a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated video sharing in June 2013, allowing its users to record and share videos lasting for up to 15 seconds. This venture has been seen as some as Facebook's attempt at competing with Twitter's Vine video-sharing application.

Features and tools

Users can upload photographs and short videos, connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites (which will enable the option to share uploaded photos to those sites), and follow other users' feeds.As of June 2013, users can connect their Instagram account to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.

In 2012, Instagram created web profiles which allows users to use their Instagram account like a social media site. This gave users a web profile featuring a selection of recently shared photographs, biographical information, and other personal details. The web feed is a simpler version of the phone app, mimicking the look and feel users are already accustomed to.