Instagram, the world’s leading photo sharing app, has just hit 150 million monthly active users.
The growth is spectacular, despite critiques from the web that the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook would spell the demise of the number one photo sharing app in the world. With 150 million monthly active users, it represents a significant increase since its last count two months ago, from an expected 130 million month actives. That’s also 50 million more than just seven months ago.
While we saw the continued growth of Instagram under the helm of Facebook, this might not continue for long: a report from the Wall Street Journal says that Facebook will begin monetizing Instagram within the next year.
What is means it this, advertising will be slapped to your face when you are happily browsing your favourite food photos or cat photos from other Instagram users.
The announcement came not much of a surprise, as Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hinted the inevitable arrival of ads to Instagram during its recent Q2 2013 earnings conference call.
“Kevin Systrom has always been clear that we’re building Instagram to be a business. We expect over time to generate a lot of profit from it. We think the right focus for now is to continue increasing the footprint of Instagram and, when the right time comes, we’ll think about advertising.” – Mark Zuckerberg
How would the advertisement targetting work? According to the Wall Street Journal’s report, the Instagram team is looking at the possibilities around the app’s Discover feature, which promotes popular content, as well the search function, which allows users to look up images or themes.
Before advertisement starts turning you off and pushing you away from the popular photo sharing app, here’s a list of the most cliche photos on Instagram where I believe most of us are guilty of posting them, and soon, Instagram is going to use these photos to target you with advertisements.
1. Feet on beach (hashtag examples: #thisislife #i<3beach #summer #photooftheday #yolo
2. Clouds (hashtags examples: #beautiful #clouds #heavenonearth)
3. Food Porn (hashtag examples: #foodporn, #omgimsofat, #foodie, #nomnom)
4. Inspirational Quotes (hashtags examples: #inspiration #sotrue #word #motivation #quotes)
5. Tall Buildings Shot from the Ground (Hashtag examples: #buildings #concretejungle #lostintheworld #highrise)
6. Latte art (Hashtag examples: #latte #art #artinmylatte #coffee)
7. Airplane Wings (Hashtag examples: #gottagetaway #flyaway #cloud9 #firsttimeonfirstclass)
8. Circle of feet (hashtag examples: #friends4ever #ig #circleoffeet #cantbelievewedidthis)
If you have not tried these, you should at least check them off your “Instagram photo” list, before your Instagram feed is drown with a sea of advertisements.
Photo Credit: Mashable
Instagram is going to use these photos to slap you with advertising – Click To Tweet
Read also: Why I deleted my Facebook mobile app