Instagram began as a location check-in app called Burbn, but founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger noticed users were heavily using its photo features, so they retooled it around photo sharing and changed the name. 1)
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were inspired to create Instagram by old Polaroid pictures. 2)
Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010, exclusively for iPhones. 3)
Facebook agreed to pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram in April 2012, its largest-ever acquisition at the time, just months before Facebook's own IPO. 4)
When Facebook acquired Instagram, the company had only 13 employees. 5)
The name “Instagram” is a portmanteau of “instant camera” and “telegram.” 6)
The original Instagram logo was a retro Polaroid camera with a rainbow stripe, designed to evoke nostalgia. 7)
The first Instagram filter, X-Pro II, was created by co-founder Kevin Systrom using a Polaroid camera and a photo of a wall. 8)
American photographer Cole Rise was involved in the creation of the original Instagram filters around 2010, designing several himself, including Sierra, Mayfair, and Sutro. 9)
Instagram Direct, the platform's private messaging feature, was launched in December 2013, allowing users to send photos and videos to up to 15 people without them appearing publicly. 10)
Instagram began displaying advertisements in November 2013, with the first ad being a sponsored photo. The opening roster of advertisers included Adidas, Lexus, PayPal, Burberry, and Ben & Jerry's. 11)
Instagram Stories was introduced on August 2, 2016, allowing users to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. The feature was widely seen as a direct response to Snapchat. 12)
Within just two months of launch, Instagram Stories had 100 million daily viewers. 13)
Instagram Reels was first tested in Brazil in 2018, then later in France, Germany, and India, before its official U.S. launch in August 2020. 14)
Instagram Reels launched in August 2020 as Facebook's answer to the hit short video app TikTok, embedding 15-second video capabilities within the Instagram app. 15)
Instagram launched IGTV in June 2018 as a standalone app for long-form vertical video, allowing users to upload hour-long videos in a bid to take on YouTube. 16)
By March 2022, Meta officially discontinued the standalone IGTV app after less than four years, as the company shifted focus to keeping all videos on the main Instagram app. 17)
Meta launched Threads, a text-based app designed to rival X (formerly Twitter), on July 5, 2023. 18)
More than 10 million people signed up to Threads within hours of its launch, as it offered a built-in audience of more than two billion Instagram users. 19)
Instagram built Threads in just five months, with a small team led by Instagram's Adam Mosseri. 20)
By June 2026, Threads had reached 500 million monthly active users, putting it on par with X. 21)
In January 2019, a photo of an egg posted by the account @world_record_egg surpassed Kylie Jenner's record for the most-liked Instagram photo, eventually racking up more than 60 million likes. 22)
Before the egg, Kylie Jenner held the record for the most-liked Instagram photo with a picture of her newborn daughter, which received more than 18 million likes. 23)
Cristiano Ronaldo broke the world record for the most-liked comment ever on Instagram, with his condolence message to Lionel Messi surpassing 6.5 million likes in 2026. 24)
As of September 2026, Instagram's own account is the most-followed on the platform with over 686 million followers. 25)
Cristiano Ronaldo is the most-followed individual on Instagram, with over 671 million followers as of 2026. 26)
Instagram originally showed posts in reverse-chronological order, but in 2016 it switched to an algorithmic feed that prioritized posts each user was likely to care about most. 27)
Kevin Systrom said that on average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their Instagram feed, which was a key reason for the algorithmic switch. 28)
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that switching to a purely chronological feed caused engagement to drop by up to 50%, which is why the platform retains algorithmic ranking by default. 29)
In 2019, Facebook disclosed that it had inadvertently stored the passwords of millions of Instagram users in plain text format on internal servers, where they were searchable by employees. 30)
In September 2024, Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined Meta €91 million ($100 million) for storing user passwords in plaintext, including those of Instagram users. 31)
Instagram has rolled out Teen Accounts with a default “13+” setting inspired by movie content ratings, and teens under 18 cannot opt out without parental permission. 32)
For teens under 16, parental approval is required to change the default protection settings on Instagram Teen Accounts, including the ability to go live. 33)
Meta's Family of Apps segment, which includes Instagram, generated $198.76 billion in revenue in 2025, with 98.7% coming from advertising. 34)
More than half of all ads on Instagram ran in Reels in 2025, up from 35% in 2024, according to data from Sensor Tower. 35)
Reels now make up 50% of all time spent on Instagram, with users sharing 3.5 billion Reels daily across Facebook and Instagram combined. 36)
Instagram Reels surpassed 200 billion daily plays across Instagram and Facebook combined in Q3 2025, double the volume of twelve months prior. 37)
On October 4, 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp went down globally for more than six hours, affecting billions of users worldwide. 38)
Mark Zuckerberg publicly apologized for the 2021 outage, saying “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about.” 39)
In August 2021, Instagram apologized for removing the official poster for Pedro Almodóvar's film “Parallel Mothers” because it showed a female nipple, and restored the posts. 40)
In May 2021, Instagram head Adam Mosseri apologized after the platform erroneously removed posts about Palestinian content, saying “We apologize to all those who felt like they could not bring attention to these incredibly important causes.” 41)
In October 2026, Elon Musk reignited his feud with Meta by posting that “Instagram is for girls” on X, drawing fresh reactions and underscoring the rivalry between the platforms. 42)
Instagram's decision to pull its photo-streaming services from Twitter was a key moment in the rivalry between the platforms, and Twitter's addition of eight filters soon after mimicked Instagram's capabilities. 43)
Twitter added eight photo filters for iPhone and Android apps in December 2012, an apparent tit-for-tat response following Instagram's move to block photos from displaying in users' Twitter feeds. 44)
Nano-influencers (1,000–10,000 followers) now represent 75.9% of Instagram's total influencer base, reflecting a shift toward smaller, more authentic creators. 45)
The global influencer marketing industry reached $32.55 billion in 2025, with Instagram remaining a dominant platform for sponsored content. 46)
Instagram's first post was uploaded on July 16, 2010, by co-founder Kevin Systrom, showing a dog at a taco stand in Mexico. 47)
The first-ever Instagram post was a photo of a dog at a taco stand in Mexico, uploaded by co-founder Kevin Systrom on July 16, 2010. 48)