| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Instagram

Page history last edited by Anna Bayacal 10 years, 5 months ago

  

Instagram is a social network that is centered around the capturing, editing and sharing of photos. It is free app for the iPhone & Android. Beyond sharing photos users can also edit photos within the app itself, but many choose to use alternate editing apps. 

 

Instagram Statistics  

  • 150 million 

    Monthly Active Users

     
  • 55 million Photos Per Day 
  • 16 billion Photos Shared 
  • 1.2 billion Likes Daily

 

Once you download the app you create a profile that consists simply of your username and e-mail. Instagram users can follow each other and see each other’s pictures. Your profile can be public or private, obviously public meaning that anybody can follow you and see your pictures and private meaning that you have to authorize people before they can see your pictures. Besides following, other ways you can interact with users is by choosing to “like” their pictures or commenting on them. A final way to interact is by the use of hashtags. You can tag photos with different tags to put it into a certain feed. For instance #meditation_levitation is when someone jumps up in the air and crosses their legs while someone takes the image. It makes it appear they are floating. There are endless tags. Some of my favorites are #minimalmountains and #tinytypography.

 

The interface of Instagram is composed by 5 buttons (you can look at Instagram's interface pictures at www.instagr.am:

 

 

With the iOS7 update, Instagram has changed the design of its interface! It has the same functions, just a different look.

 

 

Feed: Where you can see not only your own pictures, but also the pictures of the users you are following. It’s in this page that you can “like” or comment on photos.

 

Explore: It’s where you can see the most popular pictures and maybe choose other people to follow. I couldn’t find how people end up on the “Most popular page”, but apparently the most important factor is the number of “likes” in a picture in a short time. The more people are following you, the more chances you have of being “featured” in the popular page. Note: if your profile is “private” you can’t appear on the popular page. Also in this tab you can search for hashtags and users. 

 

Share: This is where it all happens. You can either choose to share a picture from your own iPhone library, or to take a picture with the app. Either way, once the picture is taken, you can choose among 15 different filters. After you choose the filter, you can name the picture and decide if you want to post it on facebook, twitter or other social networks.

 

Notifications: In this tab it informs you about the activity going on with your feed and pictures. If you click the Following tab at the top of this tab it shows you the recent activity of those you follow. 

 

Profile: It’s where you can see your own profile, privacy settings, find friends, invite friends or search for photos by words. You can look for “cat” and all of the pictures that have that word somewhere on the title will appear. Your profile has three different numbers on the top: number of followers, number of people you follow, and number of pictures you have taken so far.

 

 

Thoughts (Lauren Von Eper)

I have been using Instagram for 5 months now and I think the best part of this app is that not only the filters are great and make a difference in the pictures, but it works kind of like a twitter: you can follow people from different countries and see different concepts of beauty and visualize what’s going on with someone in real time. The interesting part is that, because of the possibility to make comments and like the pictures, Instagram became a community. I think it’s fun that many people don’t use their real names and don’t take photos of themselves. Some people I just follow because I really like their pictures, and I know absolutely anything about them. 

 

The bad part about Instagram is that so far it’s only available for the iPhone. They should really create a website that imitates the app by allowing people to filter their photos and share it online, or at least create a platform that works with Android too.

Update: Instagram launched Instagram for Android in 2012 and now launched online profiles. But in order to keep the app mobile you cannot upload via the website. 

 

 

Editing Process 


 

  

  • Choose/ Take Photo or Video
    • Photo 
      • Take photo
        • Turn on grid option
        • Use front-facing camera
        • Turn on flash 
      • Crop photo from camera roll
    • Video
      • Take video
        • Use front facing camera 
      • Crop multiple videos from camera roll
  • Edit
    • Photo 
      • Rotate- rotate image
      • Borders- add or remove borders (TIP: please don't use borders)
      • Tilt-Shift- Tilt-Shift allows you to accentuate a certain part of the image by blurring the non-selected space. You have the option to use either a linear or circular tilt-shift. (TIP: use this sparingly)
      • Lux- Makes your photos more vibrant and brings out details in your photos you couldn't see before. (TIP: useful if a beginner)
      • Choose Filter- 20 to pick from. (TIP: please don't use Kelvin)
    • Video
      • Choose Filter - 13 to pick from. 
      • Choose cover frame 
  • Share
    • Write a caption and add hashtags for context
    • Tag people - allows you to tag your friends (like Facebook, making your pictures available on their profile) instead of just adding their @handles
    • Add Location/ Add to Photo Map
    • Share Where?
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Email
      • Tumblr
      • Flickr
      • Foursquare  

 

Samples

 

 

 

 

What happens when you

Instagram has truly taken off since the last edit. It's become a social media titan, similar to the caliber of Facebook and Twitter. It's not only used for sharing photos with your network anymore; it's become a marketing tool. Celebrities are there to promote themselves and the brands that pay them to. Even average people become "instafamous," and sometimes capitalize on this fame by promoting brands that give them goods. It works the hashtag system and a popular page like Twitter, so the promotions work the same way--only that Instagram is purely visual. Even non media-related companies are now creating their own Instagrams to promote their brand. 

 

Instagram has also spawned a multitude of apps that tailor specifically for it. Since Instagram is strict with the square frame and only gives a few options for filters, apps are created just to bypass the 4x4 rule (by adding white bars to pictures) and apps that offer many more filter options.

 

 

Sources:

 

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram 

 

2. http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_use_tiltshift_instagram

 

3. http://www.technologytell.com/gadgets/90366/fake-instagram-for-android-app-made-a-brief-appearance-in-the-android-market/

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.