Today, social networking sites are becoming more and more popular; thus, the researchers are starting to worry that people are started turning into the addicted users. Since social networking sites appeared in the late 1990s, they have become a part of everyday life. Initially, the people used them to stay in touch with family and friends through the instant messages. Moreover, the users created personal profiles online to search for the jobs. In addition, the individuals started making new friends who had similar interests or communicating with old classmates whom they found through a name search. One of the main reasons why people are becoming obsessed with social networking sites is a lack of attention, which they can get now through likes or commentaries. The famous social media platforms are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Instagram is one of the most used application all over the world and was founded by Krieger and Systrom. The development of this platform resulted in the appearance of Instagram Socialmatic Camera as well as online marketing and positioned blogging as an activity or even a well-paid job. Thus, there is a need to analyze Instagram to understand how it affects the modern society.
The history of Instagram is connected with Krieger and Systrom. Both individuals decided to reorient their Burbn project into mobile photography software, and the application appeared in Apple AppStore on October 6, 2010 (Bruner). Soon, add-on hashtags were added to the app to make it easier to find users and photos. After that, the Direct Messaging Service was introduced (Bruner). In August 2016, Instagram Stories was launched, which became some sort of SnapChat prototype (Bruner). Consequently, from 2010, Instagram was constantly updated, and made it one of the most used social network site all over the world.
Instagram is a mobile phone app that has access to contacts, photos, camera, and regular social media. Now, almost everyone has a mobile phone with a camera and constant Internet connection; thus, almost all interesting events that happen in the world are covered by ordinary users. The people use Instagram to upload their pictures and share them with their friends. However, the app has a limit in terms of a shape of the image – it should be a square. On the other hand, the square shape allows a user to highlight the most important part of a picture, accustoming them to conciseness, expressiveness, and compositional thinking. In addition, a person can change the brightness, contrast, sharpness, and color saturation of an image. Snapshots can also be signed by adding hashtags and positioned on a scalable map of the world (smartphones equipped with GPS module determine the location from which a snapshot is made and add the geo-tag that is recognized by the app). Even if it is not turned on, Instagram promptly informs the users about new marks of photos and comments to them.
One of the reasons why Instagram has appeared is that in 2010, there was no social network that contained only a photo and would allow certain messages to be posted below them. The predecessor of this application was called Burbn and was intended to combine some social network functions, geo-targeting, and photography capabilities. After the launch of Instagram, 25,000 users downloaded the application, which was one of the highest rates in the history of the AppStore. It proved that society needed something original with appropriate design and functions (Bruner). Apart from that, Instagram contains minimum number of functions, and at the same time, it is convenient and easy to use. The developers of the software did not expect such huge success, but after the positive feedbacks from the first users, the creators got an incentive to improve it. Instagram was perceived as something new and unique, and the lack of such kind of innovation, which would include photo, video, messages, as well as the followers, made that program demanded and broadly used. Therefore, the main reason for its appearance was the need to combine photos and videos in one application.
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The popularity of the application has provoked the emergence of many developments that were connected with Instagram. As a separate direction of such developments, the projects of many talented designers were introduced in connection with Instagram. Moreover, the appearance of such photo editors as InstaBeauty as well as Instasize should also be noted. One of the first devices aimed directly to work with Instagram was the Instagram Socialmatic Camera — a camera designed in the style of an Instagram icon. It allows to take a photo immediately and send it to Instagram or instantly print a photo if there is a need. Thus, the developers wanted to transfer Instagram to the real world, thus offering the users to share photos not only on social network but also in real life. The first model of the product had two cameras (front and back), a touchscreen display, a mini-printer with 4 cartridges, optical zoom, a 3G module, and was also equipped with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (Nield). Apart from that, there were services that allowed users to print photos of other Instagram users on various subjects — magnets, pillows, t-shirts, and canvas, among others. Consequently, the appearance of Instagram affected the multiple mediums, hence promoting the creation of other applications that enhanced its functionality and increased popularity.
The application is compatible with iPhone, iPad, as well as iPod Touch on iOS 4.3 and higher as well as with the phones on Android 2.2 and higher with support of OpenGL ES 2. It is distributed through AppStore and Google Play respectively (Novakova). On November 21, 2013, Instagram Beta for Windows Phone 8 appeared (Novakova). In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram: the purchase price amounted to $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of the company, thus making the deal a total of $1 billion (Novakova). According to the experts, only in 2017, this social media platform received about $ 2.8 billion from global advertising, and by 2018, the number of registered users is 1.1 billion (Novakova). In this way, nowadays, Instagram is one of the most popular services on Apple devices.
Instagram influenced the marketing in general as well as blogging activity. Before the emergency of the program, online commerce or other means of selling goods were not so popular, and their existence or advertising was only available to people with a high monetary capital. With the advent of this software, the online commerce, advertising, as well as blogging began to gain popularity. Today, everyone can create his or her own online store without an additional fee for this. In the case of advertising, the founder can pay for it, if desired, or may advertise their own product on their own. At the expense of blogging, the emergence of Instagram has made it extremely developed and popular; as now, anyone can write a funny and informative content, upload interesting videos, photos, as well as stories. If the audience reaches at least 5-10 thousand, then a blogger can make paid advertisements, thereby earning money, or conduct various raffles, which increases the number of subscribers and ranking.
The impact of Instagram on social and marketing is unconditional, as such a sphere of activity is quite popular, does not require age restrictions or funds, and generates revenue. With this program, a person can even increase the rating of existing stores, shopping malls, as well as beauty salons, as by displaying product photos, a seller may inform the audience about them and distribute some promotions. Today, marketing in Instagram is extremely popular, as even well-known people conduct auctions there, and there is a chance to win something real there, which increases the demand for the use of the program. In fact, it is unknown how many years the excitement for this program would last, but one thing is sure – until people continue share their photos and short videos. Without Instagram, the existence of online marketing was not available for everyone, and blogging would be existed only on YouTube and would not be so widely used. In this way, the legacy of Instagram is the development of blogging and marketing. It means that the platform would remain popular for long ago.
All in all, Instagram is regarded as one of the most popular program in the world. It founded by Krieger and Systrom. Later, the development of the software resulted in the emergence of Instagram Socialmatic Camera, online marketing that became available for everyone, and blogging. The reason why the developers introduced this app was the demand for the application to combine photos and videos. It promoted the emergencies of new programs and photo editors, such as Instabeauty, Instasize, as well as others. Nowadays, the program is available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch on iOS 4.3 and higher as well as on smartphones phones on Android 2.2 and higher with support of OpenGL ES 2. In this way, Instagram influences the online marketing development, hence making it accessible for everyone, and promotes the blogging as a job or paid activity.
