Facebook affiliate Instagram has announced that it now has over 100 million monthly active users, five weeks after it reported that it was registering 90 million MAUs.
The photo editing and sharing application, which was bought by Facebook almost ten months ago for roughly $1 billion dollars in cash and stock, had a long running feudwith Twitter in December after the picture sharing site stopped supporting Twitter Cards.
Associating itself with Facebook and alienating twitter seems to have benefitted Instagram, however, as has increasing the site’s web-presence on desktop devices: around the same time as the 90 million MAUs announcement, Instagram launched web profiles, which now display the Instagram feed.
In the announcement post on the Instagram blog, co-founder Kevin Systrom reminisces about the moment he realised Instagram could be really successful:
Instagram’s first office had few redeeming qualities—and insulation was not one of them. There were only two of us, so we rented desks in a co-working space on a pier over San Francisco Bay. At night, it was common to find us working in winter jackets huddled over our laptops where the air was so cold we could see our breath. It was October 2010 when we launched Instagram, and San Francisco had dealt us a particularly unforgiving and chilly fall.
One night soon after launch, about a half-mile away, the Giants’ stadium was full of fans cheering on their team in a race for the NLCS against the Philadelphia Phillies. You see, having so little insulation in the office had an unintended consequence of being able to hear the crowd roar every time someone hit a long ball out towards McCovey Cove. Back in the office, we’d lift our heads up from code with every eruption of the fans, wondering who was at bat, what had happened, and whether the ball had made it or not. We never knew, but that wasn’t the point.
While we may only have had a few thousand people around the world using Instagram that night, we had a sense that maybe through Instagram we could tune in to what was happening just a few steps away. With a few quick commands at his terminal, my co-founder Mike’s screen filled with images of the game: the bullpen, dugout, concession stands, cheering fans and a panoramic view from somewhere up high. In a matter of hours, the people in that stadium had recorded moments in time through Instagram and allowed us to tune into an event while we sat a half a mile away, working—winter coats and all.
Systrom then acknowledges and congratulates Instagram’s 100 million MAUS for their efforts in making the company a global phenomenon:
Now, nearly two and a half years later, over 100 million people use Instagram every month. It’s easy to see this as an accomplishment for a company, but I think the truth is that it’s an accomplishment for our community. Now, more than ever, people are capturing the world in real-time using Instagram—sharing images from the farthest corners of the globe. What we see as a result is a world more connected and understood through photographs.
After picking out some of the examples and inspirational stories from Instagram users around the world, Systrom thanks all of Instagram’s users in a concluding paragraph:
Images have the ability to connect people from all backgrounds, languages and cultures. They connect us to aid workers halfway across the world in Sudan, to entrepreneurs in San Francisco and even to events in our own backyards. Instagram, as a tool to inspire and connect, is only as powerful as the community it is made of. For this reason, we feel extremely lucky to have the chance to build this with all of you. So from our team to the hundred million people who call Instagram home, we say thank you. Thank you for sharing your world and inspiring us all to do the same.
Here are some other Instagram’s statistics, published on their Press Centre page:
40 million Photos Per Day
8500 Likes Per Second
1000 Comments Per Second.
Are you one of Instagram’s 100 million MAUs? What do you think the company should do next to improve the service?
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