The Influence of Instagram

Once upon a time, Snapchat was in line to take over the social network throne from Facebook. It had unique features, fast growth, and celebrity super-users. But as the hype has faded over the last year, one thing has become clear: Snapchat doesn’t have a good revenue model.

As Snapchat’s standing dipped, Instagram took off. In September, Instagram reported that more than 800 million people use it every month - more than four times the size of Snapchat’s user base. The number of advertisers on the platform also doubled to 2 million since March.

Instagram has become the the ideal social network, something built in a lab by the savviest venture capitalists and engineers. It copies Snapchat’s best features, avoids Twitter’s divisive minefield, and has the support of Facebook’s business empire.