If you've marvelled at the aesthetic quality of a friend's photo album lately, you can likely credit Instagram. The photo-sharing smart-phone application has 500 million monthly active users who use it to add stylistic filters, frames, and effects to photos.
Instagram’s creators Stanford graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger (who never met at university) sparked up an acquaintance when Kevin, who formerly worked on Google's Gmail and corporate development, spent his weekends building an app that allowed location-aware photo and note-sharing, dubbing it Burbn. Mike was an enthusiastic early Burbn user and reached out to the creator and together in 2010 they developed the app Instagram.
If you're wondering about the name, "Instagram" is a portmanteau of the words "instant" (inspired by instant cameras) and "telegram”. Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video sharing and social networking service, that enables its users to take pictures and videos and share them either publicly or privately on the Instagram app as well as other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock.
Everyone knows you can find mouth-watering things to eat (#foodporn), magazine-worthy fashion (#streetstyle) and jaw-dropping travel photos (#dreamvacation) on Instagram, but the inspiration doesn’t end there. When it comes to home decor, Instagram is the go-to app for some serious style lessons. Instagram’s platform relies on visuals and you can use this social media powerhouse to help decorate your home.
A seemingly endless amount of talented interior designers, bloggers, and companies are active on Instagram, sharing photos of their most visually appealing designs. The numbers are staggering - by July 2016, Instagram had over 500 million monthly active users, 300 million daily active users sharing over 95 million posts a day, 31 million people like their Facebook page and 90% of user under 35 plus they’ve won almost every tech award going and are one of the most influential social network in the world.
So, why are they #Houseproud heroes?
In a word - inspiration. Instagram’s gorgeous snaps inspire us to mix, match, rearrange, and DIY to make our home design dreams a reality. Whether you’re looking into a full redesign of just need an idea of what to do with an empty corner, these interior design ideas serve up little snippets of inspiration daily – hit that follow button now! They say:
Every photo you take communicates something about a moment in time - a brief slice of time of where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing.