20 Aug What Is Instagram and Why Was It Successful?
Kirsten Rohrs Schmitt is an accomplished professional editor, writer, proofreader, and fact-checker. She has expertise in finance, investing, real estate, and world history. Throughout her career, she has written and edited content for numerous consumer magazines and websites, crafted resumes and social media content for business owners, and created collateral for academia and nonprofits. Kirsten is also the founder and director of Your Best Edit; find her on LinkedIn and Facebook.
The story of Instagram's explosive rise reads like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, with the company gaining staggering momentum within just a few short months. The photo and video-sharing social media application took only eight weeks for software engineers to develop before it was launched on Apple's mobile operating system in . In less than two years, Facebook (META) had acquired the company for $1 billion in cash and stock.
But, like all good tales, the process involved many twists and turns, failures and successes, conflicts and synergies, and a dose of fortuitous happenstance.
Key Takeaways
- Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social media application that was launched in 2010 by Kevin Systrom.