Headline May 06, 2015/ ''' INSTAGRAMMERS BY SOCIALS '''

''' INSTAGRAMMERS BY SOCIALS '''

UNLIKE SOME OF ITS social media rivals, Instagram isn't given to asking existential questions about the nature of its own appeal.

Systrom, who serves as CEO, believes Instagram is up to the challenge. In 2014, when he hired employee No:145, and Instagram had just expanded to-

Fill out most of its floor in a building on Facebook's faux-urban Menlo Park, Calif., campus, where Systrom is within walking distance of Facebook's leadership team.

He acknowledges that expanding  -and realizing the economic potential of  -his service is no small task. But he counters with a question of his own: Just how many companies have figured out how to nurture the point:

That it has an audience of more than a billion people? Before anyone can answer, he interrupts: ''One.'' he says. ''The one we work at.''

One of Systrom's new obsessions is flying drones, writes the authors.''You can get some cool photos of the world by looking down at it, he points out. It changes your perspective. 

And so on a June afternoon, I found myself with Systrom, Kreiger, and some other Instagrammers on-

Stanford University's campus in front of its  320-foot Andy Goldsworthy stone wall sculpture. Fifty feet above us, a-two-by-two-foot Phantum2Vision+   -a $,299 toy -swivelled its camera to point directly down.

Systrom, who towered above the rest of us at 6-foot-5 and was wearing an argyle tie fashioned to his blue-button with a silver tie clip, had linked his iPhone to the drone's camera, and we peered at the screen.

The Goldsworthy sculpture looked like a snake gliding across the lawn. Systrom snapped, snapped and snapped again.

He didn't post anything right away. Later that evening, he reviewed the photos. He picked the best one, cropped it, ran it through a filter, tweaked the saturation, and uploaded it, sharing it with his 1.5 million Instagram followers.

More than 10,000 people  ''liked'' it.  The 175 comments, however, mostly came from Instagram users who wanted customer service on their accounts, a reminder (along with the tie) that Systrom is after all the boss.''

Systrom wasn't a photograph aficionado before Instagram. He and co-founder Krieger, who is Instagram's technical lead, originally set out to build a location-based sharing app. Systrom, who grew up in Holliston, Mass, a tony Boston suburb, first met the Brazilian-born Krieger at Stanford.

Like many before them, they hatched their collaboration in a coffee shop. Their messaging app was called Burbn. It mostly let friends say where they were and share a few photos. But early on they discovered that photos were what hooked people.

The quickly built a simple photo app and selected 100 people - Apple's maximum limit for a beta test-  to test it. this time, instead of asking their friends to try it, as they had with Burbn, they reached out to two target groups.  -designers and reporters.

They launched Instagram on Oct-6, 2010. and attracted  100,000 users the first week. It has been among the top 10 most downloaded apps ever since.

Just over a year later, Facebook and Twitter began jockeying to buy Instagram. In April 2011, after reportedly turning down acquisition offers by each of the social media giants, Systrom and Kriger closed a $50 million round of funding led by venture capital firm Sequoia. The plan was to stay independent.

But on the Friday that Zuckerberg received the news about the funding, he asked to meet with Systrom. The Facebook founder raised his offer to $ 1 billion, twice what Tweeter had offered. Just as important he had promised autonomy.

Systrom and Kreiger decided to take the deal. Systrom spent most of the following weekend at the Facebook CEO's house for negotiations that were interrupted only briefly on Sunday evening so that Zuckerberg, an avid:

Game of Thrones fan, could host a long-scheduled viewing party. On Monday, April 9, before Twitter had the chance to make a counteroffer, Systrom and Zuckerberg announced the deal. Instagram's emplyees drove down the 101 to Facebook's Menlo Park Headquarters for a tour.

From an internal balcony, designer Keegan Jones Instagrammed a photo of his 12 colleagues looking up somewhat bewildered as if to say, ''What just happened?''   

Many people criticized Instagram for selling out so early when the app's popularity was skyrocketing. But the Instagram team insist that the executive at their parent company have been remarkable hands-off.

Kreiger credits Jay Parikh, head of Facebook's infrastructure group, explaining:

''Before we got here, he told everyone,  'Don't bug them. But if they ask you for help, do whatever you can.' ''

The Honour and Serving of the  ''technology operational research'' continues. Thank you for reading and see Ya all on the following one.

With respectful dedication to all the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

'''Social's Biggest Player To Be'''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless