Instagram and Facebook is a free photo and video sharing app available on Apple iOS, Android and Windows Phone. People can upload photos or videos to our service and share them with their followers or with a select group of friends. They can also view, comment and like posts shared by their friends on Instagram. Anyone 13 and older can create an account by registering an email address and selecting a username.
The company was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, both Stanford University graduates, in 2010 and now has around 200 million users. Facebook, the social networking giant, acquired the company in 2012. While its basic premise is the sharing of pictures, the site’s popularity comes from its picture-editing functionality.
Once a user snaps a picture, Instagram filters – of which there are dozens – can transform images in a manner reminiscent of old-fashioned Polaroid prints. The app allows for the creation of personal profiles but also can be connected to existing social networking profiles such as Facebook and Twitter, meaning users can share their pictures across platforms.
Instagram Questions is a feature introduced in July 2018. It allows users to answer questions posed by their followers. This is slightly reminiscent of the controversial Ask.FM, although answers to questions are not anonymous! If you send a question to someone you follow they can post that question to their story and write a response but it will not tag you as the person who asked the question. It is a popular feature with influencers.
nstagram Direct allows you to share photos, videos, hashtag pages, profiles and locations with a single person or small group of people (up to 15 people) right from a users’ newsfeed. You can access Instagram Direct via the Inbox icon in the top right-hand corner of the app.
Instagram Stories allows users to post a selection of photos/videos into one story. The new feature works in much the same way as Snapchat Stories, with stories disappearing after 24 hours. Instagram Stories are not posted to a users profile or on the Newsfeed. Instagram Stories follow the same privacy settings as a users’ Instagram profile. For example, if a user has a private account and posts a story, only the users’ friends will be able to view this story.