Headline May 05, 2015/ ''' INSTAGRAM : THE PHOTO-SHARING LOVE '''

''' INSTAGRAM : 

THE PHOTO-SHARING LOVE '''

INSTAGRAM'S USERS SHARE over 60 million photos a day and have shared over and above, and more than 23 billion in total.

In an attempt to harness this enthusiasm, Instagram has begun calling on its corporate blog for the occasional worldwide  ''InstaMeet''. Just recently was the ninth global gathering;

On the same day, Instagrammers were  snapping and sharing  photos from London to South Africa. Skinny learned about the Brooklyn InstaMeet from local organizers he follows- who spread the word in the captions of photos they posted.

Afterward, the Instagrammers selected their favourite shots, edited them, applied the app's distinctive filters, and posted them to Instagram with the hashtag #thatnycmeet; in no time there were 838, at least three of which were added by Skinny.

Skinny, 29, loves Instagram. An account manager at a publishing company, he goes to friends' Instagram meet-ups nearly every weekend, uploads photos every day, and post them under the handle @skinnywashere. 

He has 35,000 followers, which is a lot but not quiet enough yet for him to leverage into making real money. Mostly he's inspired by his passion. He calls Instagram a  ''visual diary'' that lets him connect to other creative people. 

First thing every morning he reaches for his phone, eager to see what has transpired on the app.while he was sleeping. ''I used to do BMX with my friends on the weekend, but now I Instagram,'' he says.

This is exactly kind of devotion that Facebook generated in the earliest days. That's why, two years ago, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg paid nearly $ 1 billion to buy the photo-sharing app. People thought he was crazy.

At the time  Instagram  had 13 employees, fewer than 22 million active users, and no website. Today it boasts more than 200 million active users  -almost as many as Twitter-  who upload 60 million photos every day.

They spend spend an average of 3.7 hours on Instagram every month, according to Nielson more time than people spend on Twitter or Pinterest. The acquisition has been a boon for Facebook, helping it connect to younger users.

Says RBC managing director Mark Mahaney : ''It might turn out to be one of the best deals we've seen in the history of the consumer Internet.''

That's true in part because Instagram has helped spawn a powerful new social phenomenon: Just as Kodak's invention of a roll film made it easy for almost anyone to take photographs a century ago, Instagram's invention of a-

Social feed paired with easy-to-use editing tools makes everyone capable of creating and sharing nuanced, edited pictures today.

And that photo sharing has empowered people in powerful, unexpected ways  -even those not named Kardashian or Bieber.

A 13 year-old professional skateboarder, for instance, can draw a large audience for practice skate session with one photo posted to his 42,000 followers. And an Oxford, Miss., who started using Instagram to exchanges photos with her sister-

Has amassed an audience of 530,000. Her pictures were so popular she set up a storefront and began selling prints   -enough to quit her job. Much as YouTube did for Google, Instagram has put Facebook squarely in the heart of an increasingly important medium of communication.

Businesses are leaping onto the platform. Companies from apparel maker Free People to General Electric have launched their own Instagram feeds, which they say have generated much more user engagement (in the form of ''likes'' and comments) than other social sites.

Patagonia invited climbers to instagram photos of themselves mountain climbing, tagging them #VIDAPatagonia, and then publish the photos on Patagonia.com. Others like Puma, are hiring Instagrammers with large, deeply engaged followings at rate of up to $5,000 a day to capture photos that showcase the company's products.

Just about the only party not trying to make money on Instagram right now is Instagram's corporate parent. It doesn't need to. Facebook's revenues jumped 55% last year to $7.9 billion   -and not one penny from it came from Instagram.

In 2014, In Facebook's April earning call, Zuckerberg said that he thinks Instagram has a lot of room to grow and that it will start to be an important business in the future. But, as he put it:

''Monetization isn't our near-term priority here.''  In March , 2014, Instagram signed its first deal with an ad agency, when Omnicom pledged to place around $40 million in ads on the service.

There's no guarantee of course, that the steady ascent in popularity will continue. Instagram's co-founders, Kevin Systrom, 31, and Mike Kriger, 29, know this. For one, there are myriad technical challenges, from maintaining infrastructure-

For ever more users to providing support in foreign languages. Also a host of messaging services like Snapchat and Whatsapp (now owned by Facebook) have emerged and a mounting desire for people to share photos privately rather than publicly.

The company must figure out how to evolve to meet changing tastes without changing what its users love about it.

The Honour and Serving of the  ''operational research''  continues. Thank you for reading and, maybe learning something, and see ya all on the following one.

With respectful dedication to all users of Instagram. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Ready For The Shot '''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless