Instagramers.com, a community home for lovers of the Instagram app, was born on January 20, 2011. On the site, which is based in Spain, users can learn how to use the app and build community at the same time. It’s a great place for anyone who wants to learn how this photo-sharing app actually works, and how to get noticed. Instagramers.com is slightly younger than the Instagram iOS app itself, which launched on October 2010. For the Instagram-obsessed, Instagramers.com is the place to be. How did Instagramers.com react to Facebook’s acquisition of the service? ReadWriteWeb spoke with Instgramers.com Founder Philippe Gonzalez to learn more.
ReadWriteWeb: Did you see the Facebook-Instagram acquisition coming? Were you at all concerned about or thinking about the possibility of Instagram being acquired by Facebook when you launched Instagramers.com?
Philippe Gonzalez: When I launched the blog, Instagramers.com, I didn’t really mind what would happen with Instagram in the future. I was just motivated by helping people with the Internet, apps and social networks – I wanted to help them get the most out of Instagram. My blog was not focused on a business model at all, and I knew that my project could lead nowhere, depending on the success of the app.
About the purchase itself: We had some info these last months that Google and Facebook were highly interested in the fast development of Instagram, and of course were interested in developing something in this area. There were rumors that Facebook was trying to develop its own photosharing app last winter, but nothing really happened.
We were digesting the Android version and the effect it could have. Everyday it was a constant flow of “1 million new users” into Instagram, and that was the main information we were receiving. I thought that Instagram would stay independent for a long time. First, because the number of users was increasing and the team needed money to run servers and maintenance, and secondly, because strategically Instagram needed to be a “plus” to another service. My first thought last year when I launched Instagramers.com was that it would be a perfect complement to Twitter. Most of all. People like Jack Dorsey of Twitter was one of the first people to invest in Instagram in early 2011, and Kevin Systros worked there for awhile.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.