Two years ago, Instagram came onto the scene and quickly took the entire Internet by storm. Within its short existence, the service has made some major updates, been gobbled up by Facebook for $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock, and now has over 100 million registered users with over 5 billion photos uploaded.
As Instagram celebrates another year , it’s fascinating to look back how this one application survived in its industry while other similar ones vanished — PicPlz shut its doors earlier this year while Hipstamatic found itself laying off practically everyone. Of course there have been some new competitors that have sprouted up and even an ecosystem surrounding what Instagram has been doing has emerged. Just look at Nitrogram , Keepsy , Postagram , Hatchcraft, Instacanvas, and many others.
