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Selfie obsession drives Instagram to half a billion users

Published: 11:25 21 Jun 2016 EDT

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Instagram has weathered a fair amount of controversy...

Instagram now boasts half a billion active users, with more than 300mln people using the photo sharing app at least once a day.

The service also revealed that an average of 95mln photos and videos are posted every single day.

That’s an awful lot of content, and a great number of young, impressionable eyeballs signed up to the Facebook-owned service. But chief executive Kevin Systrom assured users it’s not all about advertising.

Instagram has weathered a fair amount of controversy in order to reach its milestone.

Changes to the terms of service - a sensitive issue for social networks - unnerved users that it was looking to sell their images on to advertisers. Another announcement that content would be ordered by an algorithm rather than chronologically was heavily criticised by users.

"Nothing about ads or how many ads we show is affected by what happens with the algorithm. This is all about making sure that you see the best stuff,” said Systrom.

In just five and a half years, the app has overtaken micro-blogging site Twitter, which it attributes to the rapid adoption by celebrities and influencers. 25,000 people downloaded the app on its first day when it launched in 2010.

Facebook bought the platform in 2012 for around $1bn, roughly £677mln. Since then it overtook its main rival, image sharing service Snapchat.

Snapchat recently reported a comparatively measly user base of 100mln.

Driven by the selfie culture, Instagram is rapidly becoming Facebook’s flagship content service, so it will be interesting to see how the two work together as Facebook absorbs more and more content onto its main platform.

Yesterday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg kept control of his voting rights after shareholders voted in favour of his proposal to convert 99% of his shares in order to donate his wealth to charitable causes.

Shareholders also re-elected the entirety of the board, including the controversial billionaire and co-founder of Paypal Peter Thiel, despite a petition by the US Guild of Writers calling on Zuckerberg to remove him from the board.

 

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