It looks like a picture really is worth much more than words seeing as Instagram has managed to snap up 300 million users, which is more than Twitter can boast about. Of course, both sites have a long way to go before they beat Facebook. Since Mark Zuckerberg now owns the image- and video-sharing service, this is obviously just another feather in the hat.
But more than that, the social network has clearly padded itself quite comfortably against declining usage in the future by laying out the cash for Instagram. The latter boasts of seeing 70 million pictures and videos shared through it on a daily basis. Marking the celebrations is a new feature called verified badges which work like those blue badges on Twitter and Facebook.
In the coming days, the Instagram accounts of celebrities, brands and other well known names will start displaying these markers to indicate that users are following the real deal and not someone pretending to be who they think he or she may be. Another project the company has been working on over the past few years has been seeing it weed out fake or spam accounts.
Also see: Instagram Direct launched, lets you send private messages
So just in case you notice a drop in the number of your followers, it’s probably Instagram’s fault. The developers say that they will be permanently deleting user profiles which were detected to have been fake. Such accounts were merely deactivated until now, in case you’re asking. If your follower count decreases due to the aforesaid changes, a notification within the app will tell you more about it.
Considering that Instagram has been around for four years only, a user base of 300 million is far from unimpressive. Since it’s acquisition by Facebook, it has been subjected to many improvements as well as some alterations worth booing at. The search function was enhanced and a People tab pulling together interesting accounts to follow was introduced only last month.