#instagram #advertising #newideas #newleapforward
Instagram has decided to take a leap forward with its latest announcement that it will now be allowing advertisements. Instagram ads have already become available in countries like Mexico, India and South Korea; they will be on sale globally by September end. These ad videos can now run for 30 seconds rather than 15 and can use landscape dimensions instead of just squares.
Instagram was developed in San Francisco by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger as a free online mobile photo sharing, video sharing and social networking app. The name Instagram is a portmanteau word,created from "instant camera" and "telegram". Instagram was launched in October 2010. The initial version had a feature wherein photos were confined to a square shape,unlike the usual aspect of mobilecamera photos.
Instagram allows users to take photos at each moment of their lives and upload and share through the app. As a photo-sharing app that came up at the same time as many others, it had unique features. It allowed a user to choose a filter to customize the image and capture the moment perfectly, often allowing amateur photographs to look like professional ones.
The app allowed sharing of photos across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr and Foursquare, making it hugely popular. The hashtag trend became popular on Instagram, and started being used widely in captions and comments. (for doubts refer to title) Its popularity was such that 100 million photos had been uploaded by July 2011; By September 2011, there were 10 million users.
In April 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion dollars in a high-profile takeover. In 2013, Instagram introduced photo tagging; linked to this, a tab was added which had a collection of every photo the user was tagged in. A new feature allowed users to embed links to his own photos and videos in other platforms, driving traffic back to Instagram, making sharing easier.
In 2013, Instagram courted controversy when BBC found that Instagram was being used in the sale of illicit drugs. Apparently users, mostly in the US, had been posting images of the drugs they were selling and then completing deals over apps like WhatsApp.
In 2013, Instagram was listed in Time magazine as one of the top 50 Android apps for the year. In 2014, Instagram was found to be one of the fastest-growing apps, having increased its users by 23% in just 6 months. By late 2014, it was evident that Instagram had eclipsed Twitter with its burgeoning number of users of 35 million users and counting.
With the launch of advertisements on Instagram that was announced, Facebook will finally make back the money it spent on acquiring it. These advertisements will allow commercial interests to bloom; the photo network will become more valuable to merchants and developers who want an immediate return on investment. Facebook's advertising technology and connections with brands will certainly help Instagram in this new venture.
