Instagram founder Kevin Systrom was born in 1983 in San Diego, California. He is the son of Diane Pelz, a Zipcar marketer who also worked for Monster and Swapit Corporation. His father is Douglas Systrom, Vice President of Human Resources at TJX. The biography of the creator of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, is not too rich in interesting events - in general, he is a typical representative of the "golden youth" who has achieved success thanks to creative thinking and good organizational skills.
early years
Systrom attended the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was introduced to computer programming. His childhood interest in programming grew from playing Doom 2 to creating his own levels in the game. We can say that at that moment his future was predetermined.
As a teenager, the guy worked at the Boston Beat, a vinyl store in Boston, while attending high school at the same time. At school, he was a typical outcast: he had problematic skin, stuttered slightly, often walked around with unwashed hair. It was also difficult to call him a diligent student. However, he had one passion: video games. He played them day and night, plunging into the game world and completely forgetting about real life. In games, he, a modest sloppy boy, was a superhero and arbiter of destinies. But the career of a professional gamer did not appeal to young Systrom - he wanted to be a demiurge, creating his own worlds. In the future, when he creates a whole universe called Instagram, he will have the opportunity to fully simulate the surrounding reality. He will even be able to correct his own appearance, turning from a downtrodden nerd into a stately handsome man.
After school, the future entrepreneur studied at Stanford University and won a prestigious scholarship that allowed him to develop his programming skills and get to know the first startups in his life, and even earn a certain amount of money from this. Sistrom's parents supported him in everything and financially helped, fortunately, his family could afford it.
After graduating from Stanford, Systrom joined Google working on Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets and other projects. He spent two years at Google as a marketer. Kevin Systrom left the company due to his frustration at not being accepted into the Associate Product Manager program.
Burbn
He decided to leave Google and develop his own Burbn app. After 2 weeks, the profit has already gone. It was the development of the Burbn platform that ultimately led to the creation of the social network Instagram. A month after its launch, the network included almost one million users, which was an amazing result for such a young project. Just a year later, Instagram gained more than 10 million users, and this social network was talked about all over the world.
In 2010, Instagram creator Kevin Systrom took San Francisco engineer Mike Krieger as his partner. Krieger is rightly considered the co-founder of this project, since young people developed the ability to upload photos and videos, mark places of stay and import all this into other social networks together. The name Instagram comes from the words instant (instant) and telegram (telegram).
The history of this social network is rather ornate. Instagram began to develop in San Francisco when Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger decided to focus their diverse project, originally designed for HTML5 registration, on photos taken with a mobile phone. As Krieger said, at some point their project became too similar to Foursquare, and both programmers realized that they had gone too far and obviously turned somewhere wrong. They then decided to focus on the photo app. This is how the Instagram that we all know well appeared.
Kevin Systrom posted the first photo on his network on July 16, 2010. This photo showed a stray dog from Mexico and the legs of a Systroma girl. The photo has been modified with the X-PRO2 filter from Instagram.
Financial achievements
On April 3, 2012, Instagram was released for phones running the Android software. This version of the popular app was downloaded over a million times in less than one day. It was another major success, more than doubling the network's audience. To date, the number of users using Instagram for Android exceeds the number of users using other software.
Just before the planned merger with Facebook, the deal would cost about a quarter of the latter's cash, according to data released in late 2011. In the end, it happened, but, according to Zuckerberg, the deal was worth it. Systrom made $400 million from it, and Zuckerberg got rich thanks to his new social network, which was a great addition to Facebook. The exact purchase price was $300 million in cash and 23 million shares. The profit generated by Instagram over the next two years exceeded the amount of the purchase many times over.
In 2012, a browser version of this popular application was released so that users can open it through a computer. The web version of Instagram initially lacked a search bar, a news feed, and the ability to upload photos. In February 2013, the web version of Instagram was updated with a full news feed, and in June 2015 the website was redesigned to allow more photos to be uploaded. Photos of Kevin Systrom were the first files uploaded to the social network.
Further changes
Since its launch, the app has used Foursquare's API technology to display the locations where a particular photo was taken. In March 2014, Instagram began testing the transition to Facebook Places technology.
In March 2016, very serious changes were made to Instagram, which caused a storm of protest and indignation on the part of users devoted to the social network. The changes affected mostly the display of news and updates in user subscriptions. Many "opinion leaders" on Instagram called for a boycott of the social network, and the boycott action dragged on for more than a month. The official developers of the application justified the adjustments made by saying that, as the social network is constantly expanding, it needs a qualitatively new functionality that can display more photos, videos and news. Despite the outrage from users, Systrom refused to change anything in the latest updates of the social network.
On May 11, 2016, Instagram updated its design with a black and white app theme and a more abstract, "modern" and colorful icon. Rumors of a redesign first began circulating in April when The Verge received a screenshot from anonymous insiders. At the same time, an Instagram official assured the publication that this was just a test design.
Merging two giants
In April 2012, Instagram was sold to Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Corporation for $1 billion (both in cash and stock). Thirteen employees who previously worked for Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have also moved to Facebook. According to some reports, the deal netted Systrom US$400 million based on his stake in the project. A little later, Mark Zuckerberg, the new owner of Instagram, said that Facebook "is committed to improving and growing the Instagram network", so Systrom was allowed to work on the social network further.
As a result, from a free entrepreneur, Kevin Systrom voluntarily became a subordinate of Mark Zuckerberg. In an interview with Bloomberg, Systrom said that Facebook has many advantages, and therefore he does not regret his act. He once stated: “I realized that we need to team up with a huge company that understands how to grow, understands how to build a business, has one of the best, if not the best, management team in high technology, and we should use it in as our resource."
In an interview with Forbes, he stated that "Instagram is a new form of communication that is ideal for iPhone owners with a constant involvement in the modern social world." The Instagram social network is built around photos, allowing people to quickly and conveniently comment on them, as well as share them on other networks like Twitter and Facebook. Kevin Systrom describes Instagram as a media company that allows major corporations such as Disney, Activision, Lancome, Banana Republic and The CW to deploy their ads while taking full advantage of an audience of millions.
Under Systrom's leadership, Instagram has developed the unique features of its social network, such as photo filters and short videos. Over time, the Instagram team has introduced features that allow users to upload and filter photos and short videos, follow other users' feeds, follow the location of their friends, and comment on other people's photos and videos. In 2012, the Instagram team developed rich web profiles for its users, allowing them to connect their accounts to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr a year later.
Further development
Systrom hired former Yahoo vice president James Everingham, as well as Kevin Weil, who previously led the development of new features for Twitter, to make them high-ranking Instagram executives.
As of October 2015, 40 billion pictures have been shared on Instagram.
As of June 2016, the network had over 500 million active users.
In 2016, CNN released a study that ranked Snapchat as the most important social network among teens aged 14 to 19, the first ranking in two years in which Instagram was not number one.
Instagram currently has about 450 employees. The application is used by 600 million people per month and 300 million per day. Its rivals Snapchat and Twitter use more people with a smaller user base, and Twitter has 3,500 employees with 317 million monthly users. Snapchat, in turn, employs 1,500 people with half of Instagram's daily user base.
In the future, Kevin Systrom aims to develop Instagram to improve video usability and integration with other social networks. He also stated that in a few years the company may participate in projects from the Virtual Reality series.
According to Quartz and the New York Times, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger implemented a system to overcome slow decision making in the company by scheduling meetings where all the most important decisions are made by voting. This approach arose from Systrom's interest in academic business theories, specifically the concepts of Clayton M. Christensen in The Innovator's Dilemma.
Possible plagiarism
Instagram has been repeatedly accused of copying various new features from its closest competitor, Snapchat. Regarding this issue, Systrom has repeatedly argued that all new services launched by technology companies today are "remakes" of already existing products and that "all these ideas are original when you rebuild them with minor specific changes." Systrom also claimed that "anyone can trace the roots of any feature that anyone put into their app somewhere in the history of technology" and that "that's how Silicon Valley works."
Recognition and interesting facts
Personal life
For many years, the love of a young entrepreneur is Nicole Systrom, a cleaning manager for one of the largest Californian companies. The couple has been dating for a long time, and in 2016 young people sealed their relationship by marriage. They are not planning children yet, apparently believing that at this stage in their lives they should focus on business, travel and self-development. Nicole, like Kevin, appreciates good food, expensive wines and is interested in high technology, to which her husband has devoted his whole life. However, she does not like publicity too much.
Kevin and Nicole are one of the strongest celebrity couples in Silicon Valley.
Conclusion
Systrom is one of the brightest, most talented and creative entrepreneurs of the last decade. It is not without reason that he is compared with such successful startups as Mark Zuckerberg and Pavel Durov - he also pursued the idea of a functional, convenient and eye-pleasing social network all his life and eventually implemented it, making himself a billionaire along the way. Many, however, still dispute the feasibility of merging Instagram with Facebook, because Systrom, being a good manager and organizer, could well create his own successful media corporation that could compete on equal terms with the monumental brainchild of Zuckerberg. But here, apparently, personal qualities have already worked - Systrom, unlike many young innovators, is not ambitious and is quite able to be content with little. In addition, as is obvious, he will not have to starve for the rest of his life, because Instagram brings its creator a very solid passive income.
Are you curious to know what is the popular who invented it? Read our material, discover the new world of modern life of the most famous social network for quick sharing of both photos and videos.
Live communication Instagram
Many are interested in whether there is an exact date when Instagram appeared. After all, this application for quick editing and placement of photos has entered our everyday life so quickly and imperceptibly that sometimes it even seems that it has always been like this. In fact, it has only been a little over five years since the world first heard the name.
Of course, there is also the exact date when the famous app first appeared in the App Store (Apple's) app download list. It is from October 6, 2010 that the beginning of the hectic life of Instagram should be counted. Well, we can say that the baby quickly got on his feet, largely due to the fact that such famous personalities as the American programmer Kevin Systrom and entrepreneur Mike Krieger were involved in the history of its creation.
It was this successful tandem that managed to create a team that further provided Instagram with a cloudless life.
Why use Instagram?
When Instagram appeared in Russia, at first it was considered an elite "toy" for very wealthy people. At first, many shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, why they use it at all and whether it is so important in our lives, when the number of social networks is growing day by day.
Only over time it became clear that Instagram compares favorably with others by a number of advantages in photo and video editing, as well as in the speed of loading material and the number of fans that you will have immediately after the first acquaintance with the popular program.
Today, we can confidently name the most delicious Instagram highlights:
- the ability to add landscape and portrait photos;
- the presence of a full-fledged messenger;
- the maximum number of comments and subscribers.
In fact, it was the desire to become popular and get the maximum number of “likes” that made Instagram the resource without which we cannot imagine modern life.
Popular and versatile resource
Instagram users experienced even greater delight in 2013, when in a popular application they began to appear such that no other brand has. The greatest success was wrecked by Instagram Direct due to its maximum mobility when exchanging messages.
As soon as Direct appeared, the question of how to reach the largest possible audience of people to view their photos and video materials disappeared by itself.
The uniqueness of Instagram Direct is that it allows you to send messages not only to your subscribers, but in general to any user of the service whom you choose.
Such an unlimited expansion of opportunities for communication and information exchange caused a positive response from Instagram users and the number of subscribers instantly increased several times! Instagram statistics speak volumes about the fact that for more than 85 million of their users, the Direct feature has become one of the most popular.
It is already impossible to imagine the modern life of residents of megacities without a mega-popular social network. The history of the birth and life of the Instagram application is a truly legendary story about the phenomenal success that was originally built on a competent study of the global demand in the photo and video application market.
As you can see, if you already know that the main feature of the Instagram application is not the interface and not the filters, then you should remember this means of visual communication correctly, because it is ideal for people who find it easier to express thoughts with photos than with words. Often one picture can be worth a thousand words. It is better to act together and together with those people who already have experience and results. Come to our programs, at the same time and earn more!
With you,
- Igor Zuevich.
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Kevin Systrom is a simple American student who literally raved about the idea of explosive startups. Millions of Instagram users are now thanking him. It was he who once came up with the idea: to create a service that can turn even low-quality photos into extremely attractive images. But not everything worked out right away. Success was preceded by disappointments and fears of bankruptcy, although not when working on this particular project.
After diligently attending seminars, meeting entrepreneurs, and absorbing the idea of a quick start, Kevin Systrom decides to create the Burbn app. Naturally, it was not without subsidies of $ 250,000 - the help of a familiar businessman.
The developed application had to combine the possibilities of photography and geotargeting, some functions of social networks. Kevin was a good photographer, that's why he was drawn to such things.
In parallel, Mike Krieger is working on the Meebo project, which is a site for communication. Kevin persuades Mike to leave his development and focus on Burbn. After some time, this couple became a tandem, which gave rise to a project worth a billion US dollars. And this amount was paid by Mark Zuckerberg himself, the genius who created Facebook. But it was later, but in the beginning ...
Stage of frustration
The first stage of joint work was not smooth. Systrom decided that the probability of failure of their idea and bankruptcy is quite high due to the mass of competitive projects. Bottom line - companions left Burbn, trying to create something else. The result was null. And it was on such a dull evening that Kevin came up with an idea - filters, those same filters that can turn an ordinary user of a mobile device into a high-class photographer.
At the start of success
Boiled work. The partners created the first version of Instagram, which was subsequently published in the App Store. It happened on the night of October 6, 2010.
And then - everything seriously spun that very night: users downloaded a free application, future millionaires worked tirelessly, as there was a danger - the likelihood of server failures due to a large influx of visitors.
Next morning. Authoritative resources Techcrunch and Beats Blog publish the news about the emergence of Instagram. More and more visitors. In those moments, the servers miraculously withstood the load, and the application was downloaded by another 25,000 users. In the future, measures were taken to ensure the vital activity of the explosive novelty: new personnel joined the team. They became:
- Josh Riedel - manager;
- Shane Sweeney - engineer;
- Jessica Zollman, who was supposed to handle the promotion.
Peak of popularity
The efficient team soon implemented the following releases and improvements:
- January 2011 - added the use of hashtags, making it easier to find photos;
- September 2011 - release of version 2.0, which pleased with the change in optional borders, live filters and other useful innovations;
- April 2011 - the launch of the Android version, downloaded more than a million times in just a day.
Purchasing a Facebook service
At that time, the fame of Instagram was huge, but with monetization it was zero. It happens. But on April 9, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg buys the brainchild of Systrom and the team for $1 billion. At the same time, only 300 thousand were paid in cash, the rest was Facebook shares.
Today Instagram is one of the most popular social networks and continues to gain momentum. It is already difficult to imagine a modern person who would not have heard about this social network. Let's go back to the roots and find out who invented Instagram.
We owe the very fact of the emergence of this application to the Stanford student Kevin Systrom, who took on an explosive startup and did not lose. He attended seminars for a long time, talked with entrepreneurs and absorbed valuable ideas for a quick start.
Kevin Systrom met Mike Krieger, who at the time was working on the Meebo project (a social networking site). In 2010, a tandem was created that created a billion-dollar app. They worked hard on several previous collaborations that did not bring the expected result.
Who invented Instagram and why?
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger started working on the idea of creating a service that would transform even poor quality photos and make them interesting and attractive with the help of filters. After hard work, they released the first version of the program on the App Store on the night of October 6, 2010. From that moment on, the first users appeared who appreciated the program.
In the first few days, the app was downloaded by 25,000 users, one of the highest numbers in the history of the App Store. After some time, the application was adapted for Android devices, and the influx of users exceeded all possible limits.
Today, Instagram has new features, it is constantly updated and never ceases to amaze.
From today about Instagram perhaps only infants and some tribes of the Indians of the Amazon do not know. Indeed, this application for quick editing and posting photos has made a truly dizzying career. The application, most of which was created literally “on the knee” and in just a week, was bought for $1 billion in less than two years.
Agree, a good motivation for those who are still looking for their way in the IT field. However, let's talk about everything in order.
Instagram. The beginning of the story
With the fact that Instagram appeared, we owe it to a simple American student from Stanford - Kevin Systrom, who literally raved about the ideas of explosive startups. However, for the time being, his dreams remained dreams: he diligently attended specialized seminars, met with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and absorbed, absorbed the ideas of a quick start.
Finally, at the suggestion of one of his acquaintances businessmen (and subsidies of $ 250,000), he decided to create a Burbn application that would combine some functions, geotargeting and photography capabilities. I must say that Kevin has always been a good photographer and was drawn to such things. Not without a faithful assistant: Kevin meets Mike Krieger, who at that time was working on the Meebo project (a site for communication).
A little persuasion, a mountain of promises and a lot of prospects - this is probably the best answer to how exactly Kevin persuaded Krieger to abandon his past work and concentrate only on the development of Burbn. In a short time, a tandem was created, which a little later spawned a billion-dollar application. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, there are problems ahead of us.
First disappointments
It sounds a little funny now, but the first experience of working together was terrible: very soon Systrom told Krieger bluntly that their idea with Burbn was on the verge of failure. What Kevin Systrom said was something like, "Mike, buddy, hit me with thunder, but we're not making that damn Burbn fly. He has too many competitors. We will go bankrupt before we get this project going.”
B urbn was pushed into the background, and partners made timid attempts to create other similar applications. But the result was not pleasing. It's time for depression and despair. However, it was for the best, because it was on one of these sad evenings that everything began.
Evin came up with an idea that lay on the surface: we need a service that could transform even the poorest quality photos and make them extremely attractive.
Filters!
We needed easy-to-use filters that would turn any user of a mobile device into a venerable photographer. On the same evening, Kevin Systrom created the first, but far from the last filter in the history of Instagram.
Explosive start
Having got to work, the partners created the first version of Instagram, which they posted on the App Store (at first the application was only available for products) on the night of October 6, 2010. It is this date that should be carved in golden letters in the Instagram story, because some completely unimaginable carousel began next. Immediately the first users began to flow, who began to download the free application. Until the morning, future millionaires worked hard, making sure that the servers did not fall under the influx of a mass of unexpected visitors.
In three news about the appearance of Instagram is posted by such authoritative resources as the Beats Blog and Techcrunch. This causes a wave of new visitors, which becomes the limit for: they can hardly withstand the load. In the first days, the application was downloaded by 25,000 users, which was one of the highest numbers in the history of the App Store.
From the talo, it is clear that Instagram is accepted by users, and urgent measures must be taken to ensure its life. So over time, manager Josh Riedel, engineer Shane Sweeney and promoter Jessica Zollman appeared in the team. The wheel has turned.
Continuation of the glorious path
Instagram's popularity has snowballed, fueled in no small part by the quickness of the team. They understood that they needed to constantly develop their brainchild so that users would not turn away from them. The following improvements and releases were made very soon:- ~ in January 2011, the use of hashtags was introduced, which greatly simplified the search for photos of a specific topic;
- ~ in September 2011, version 2.0 was released, which unexpectedly pleased with live filters, changing optional borders, high-resolution photos and other necessary "buns";
- ~ finally, in April 2012, the long-awaited version for Android was launched, which users downloaded more than 1 million times in just a day. An impressive number.
Facebook buys Instagram
Until now, disputes have not subsided about whether he did the right thing by giving a whole billion for a completely unprofitable service. Yes, yes, despite its high-profile fame, Instagram had not yet monetized in any way. Someone says that this is a real "soap bubble", someone praises the founder of Facebook for his foresight.
In any case, the fact remains: on April 9, 2012, Instagram was bought by Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion. Moreover, $300 million was transferred in cash, and the rest in Facebook shares. In an instant, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have gone from ripped-jean freaks to multi-millionaires.
By the way, they still work on Instagram today. Despite the fact that the money raised would be more than enough for a comfortable life until old age. Now their main task is to develop a monetization system that would turn Instagram from a very expensive toy into a profitable thing.
Today, on Instagram, you can not only take photos, but also shoot videos. This application is already integrated with Facebook and a number of other social networks. Not so long ago, the application became available for Windows Phone 8 users. User opportunities and social involvement have been expanded. Instagram does not lose ground, constantly increasing momentum and opportunities, and promises its followers a lot of useful innovations.
