Blog #7: Diffusion of Innovations

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 Instagram

    Instagram is a social media app that is extremely popular in today's day and age. It is an app that I have had since late elementary school and is one that I use regularly. The primary purpose of Instagram is to post and share photos for people to see, as well as seeing the posts of people you follow. 



Why did it catch on?

    The success of Instagram started when Stanford graduate Kevin Systrom decided to create a web app called Burbn. The app allowed for people to post their plans as well as share photos. Photo-sharing was very unique at the time and caught the attention of two venture capitalists. After meeting about the app, Systrom received $500,000 and quit his job to work on Burbn. The primary focus was targeted at the photo sharing capabilities, since they saw huge potential in it. They first looked at the app Hipstamatic since it allowed you to apply filters and such to photos, however, it lacked a social media feature.

Kevin Systrom

    After working on the app for about 8 weeks, the app was given to friends as a beta test to determine its performance. The early adopters of Instagram came when the app was finally released on iOS on October 6th 2010. The app quickly gained 25,000 users in a single day, and 100,000 users in the first week. By mid-December, the app reached 1 million users. The reason it caught on so quick was in part because of its unique photo sharing feature, but also because of the iPhone 4 which had come out earlier that year in June, had an improved camera.

Why are some people late adopters?

    Instagram continued to grow to an incredible degree, becoming one of the most popular social media apps. However, some people are only just now getting it, or haven't gotten the app at all. The reasoning behind some people only just now deciding to get the app or not getting it at all comes down to the negative effects of Instagram. Because Instagram has so many users, it becomes hard to monitor people saying or posting hurtful things. Because of this, many people struggle with anxiety on what people may say on their posts, along with other mental health problems. Not only this but many people are untrustworthy of their privacy on Instagram. The app was bought by Facebook in 2012 for 1 billion dollars, and people are already aware of the things Facebook has been accused of in terms of privacy. It is already known that Instagram collects information on what you look at to show related posts, but what's to say that it stops there? I would say that the positives of Instagram outweighs the negatives, only if you are not very anxious about what the app may collect about you, and if you are not anxious about what people may say on your posts, although you can still use the app without posting a single picture. 

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