If we had to say what is the phenomenon of the year on the net, we would have only one answer available: Instagram, which allows users to take photos, apply filters, and share them on numerous social network services. In truth, there would be another stellar app to contend for this platonic accolade. It's Uber, valued at 41 billion dollars, but at the end of 2014 she behaved terribly and found coal under the tree.
Instagram has grown enormously in favor of the two billion people who use mobile devices for everything. Especially the younger audience likes it, and this thing, in turn, likes it very much on Wall Street.
Over 90% of Instagram's user base is under the age of 35; 41% are in the 16-24 age group; 51% of boys and girls of secondary school age have an Instagram account. Overall, compared to 2013, adolescents between 16 and 19 years (51% male and 49% female), with an Instagram account, have increased by 85% and 30% of them consider it their favorite social network platform. 70 million photos are posted every day by the 75 million daily users. For those who like slightly extravagant statistics, we recommend visit these pages. From this source we also learn that 9% of adolescents declare that they have suffered bullying actions on Instagram. Parents won't know about it because they are watching them on Facebook.
Overtaking on Twitter
By reaching 300 million total users, Instagram has surpassed Twitter, another reality that has elicited many wows in the past years: a significant overtaking. Meanwhile, Instagram's capitalization has soared to $35 billion (Twitter = $25 billion), a staggering figure for a business with 175 times less revenue. What will those observers think now who fell silent a few months ago when Facebook paid out 22 billion dollars to control WhatsApp? Even WhatsApp, 600 million users, had microscopic revenues in relation to its value and in 2014 it lost 236 million dollars.
Instagram is taking the very first steps on the road to monetization. According to a survey by investment bank Morgan Stanley, the matter promises very well. Revenues, estimated at 200 million in 2014, will double year on year over the next 4 years, well over the estimated 30% annually for Facebook. In 2018, the revenues of Instagram, which employs just 200 people, will be 1/8 of Facebook's total. Advertisers pay an Instagram ad 20 times as much as a Facebook ad. Another parameter developed by Morgan Stanley tells us that Instagram's valuation is in line with the market; the value of an Instagram user is 100 dollars. On Twitter it's $74, on Snapchat it's worth $100, while on Facebook the value of a user rises to $130. In reality, it is the whole area of social media that is immersed in the thinnest layer of the stock market bubble, as warned by Janet Yellen, the governor of the FED.
In any case, at the helm of Instagram there is a courageous captain who now garners the trust and admiration of the whole world. We are talking about Mark Zuckerberg who has earned the cover of "Time" for his vision of a totally connected and socialized globe. In the meantime, some well-deserved satisfaction is also arising: in 2012, when Facebook bought Instagram, a San Francisco start-up with 13 employees, paying it one billion dollars in cash, it was badly reproached and shouted scandalously: “At Facebook I am gone crazy!”, “They are bubble ratings, dangerous!”, “Zuckerberg won't go very far!”. And instead Mark Zuckerberg, who more than anyone has the "ear in the bucket", had once again done the right thing.
The secret of Instagram success
The success of Instagram, beyond the debate on the economic value of social media, also tells us something else about what is happening in the communication system in the age of social media. The overtaking of Instagram on Twitter, the most sophisticated system of collective writing and socialization of ideas and experiences through the written word, establishes the dominance of the image over the text in human forms of expression.
Technophobes tend to think that Instagram is the latest expression of a youthful world, a phenomenon destined for the net dump as soon as its followers migrate to a cooler platform, which is already being built. These very respectable techno-skeptics, who carry on a fascinating humanistic battle against technology and its consequences, should browse the wikiromance in instragrams "Winter tales from the beach" created by Marco Minghetti, professor of humanistic management in Pavia. This multimedia work was made possible thanks to the Instagram filters used, on the spot, to fix moods and instantaneous sensations in the face of situations characterized by strong emotion. Instagram is a great tool for expressing and socializing creativity as it happens.
This extra grain of creativity, which Instagram manages to associate with spontaneity and sociability, is the basis of its enviable popularity and astonishing success. Technology doesn't always meet art, but when it does, something is born that is destined to last and open new horizons. That's why Instagram will stay quite a long time… but you never know. What is certain is that in 2015 Instagram will still attract millions of people to take pictures, apply filters and share the result with those who feel like participating. But be careful to behave yourself. Instagram has its own etiquette. Read the post written by two young bloggers, Luisa Covini and Silvia Valesani who know Instagram very well and who will help you not make a bad impression.
