Timeline of Instagram

Timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
2009	October 21	Product	Kevin Systrom starts working on the project with the name Burbn.[1]
2010	March 5	Funding	Systrom closes a US$500,000 seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn.[2]
2010	May 19	Team	Mike Krieger joins the Burbn project[3]
2010	October 6	Product	Burbn is rebranded to its current name Instagram (from Systrom and Krieger) with the aim of facilitating communication through images.[4] Over 25,000 users registered on launch day, and over 100,000 in a week since launch.[5][6]
2010	December 12	Growth	Instagram surpasses 1 million registrations.[7]
2011	January	Product	Instagram adds hashtags to help users discover both photographs and each other.[8] Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users.[9]
2011	February 2	Funding	Instagram has raised US$7 million in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo.[10] The deal values Instagram at around $25 million.[11]
2011	June	Growth	Instagram hits 5 million monthly active users.[12]
2011	September	Growth	Instagram hits 10 million monthly active users.[12]
2011	September	Product	Version 2.0 of Instagram goes live in the App Store (iOS) and included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon.[13]
2012	April 3	Product	Instagram is released for the Android operating system with support starting at version 2.2 "Froyo",[14] and it is downloaded more than one million times in less than one day.[15]
2012	April 5	Funding	Instagram raises US$50 million from venture capitalists for a share of the company; the process values Instagram at US$500 million.[11][16]
2012	April 9	Acquisitions	Facebook acquires Instagram for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock.[17][18]
2012	April 30	Growth	Instagram hits 50 million monthly active users.[12]
2012	June	Competition	Vine (service), a short-form video sharing service, launches. It was acquired by Twitter in October that year.[19]
2012	December 17	Product	Instagram updates its Terms of Service, granting itself the right – starting on January 16, 2013 – to sell users' photos to third parties without notification or compensation.[20][21]
2013	February	Growth	Instagram hits 100 million monthly active users.[12]
2013	May	Product	Instagram introduces photo tagging and "Photos of You," a new tab on a user's profile listing every picture he or she is tagged in.[22]
2013	June 13	Product	Instagram launches video sharing.[23]
2013	July	Product	Instagram makes it easier to share posts by adding links to embed photos and videos.[22][24]
2013	September	Growth	Instagram hits 150 million monthly active users.[12]
2013	October	Controversy	Instagram deletes the account of Canadian photographer Petra Collins after Collins posted a photo of herself in which pubic hair was visible beneath her bikini bottom.[25] Collins claims the account deletion was unfounded because it did not break any of Instagram's terms and conditions.[26]
2013	November	Controversy	Instagram acts in response to a 2013 investigation from the BBC regarding the role of Instagram in sales of illicit drugs. The BBC had discovered that users, mostly located in the US, were posting images of drugs they were selling and then completing transactions via instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp Messenger. Corresponding hashtags are blocked as part of the company's response.[27]
2013	November	Product	Instagram introduces sponsored post advertising targeting US users.[28][29]
2013	December	Team	Snapchat announces that it will poach Emily White, director of business operations of Instagram. Emily White will move to Snapchat in January.[30]
2013	December 12	Product	Instagram adds Direct, a feature that allows users to send photos to specific people directly from the app. Instagram's primary intention with the Direct feature is to compete against messaging services, including Snapchat.[31][32]
2014	March	Growth	Instagram hits 200 million monthly active users.[12]
2014	June	Product	Instagram launches new series of editing tools – allowing users to minutely customize image characteristics like brightness, contrast, highlights, and shadows.[33]
2014	August	Team	The company's Global Head of Business and Brand Development – a new position for Instagram – is announced. Facebook's former Regional Director James Quarles was assigned the role.[34]
2014	August 21	Product	Instagram makes itself more advertising-friendly by introducing a suite of business tools aimed at brands which offer insights and analytics related to their use of the image-sharing network.[35]
2014	December	Growth	Instagram hits 300 million monthly active users.[36]
2015	January	Controversy	In a similar incident to Collins's, Instagram deletes Australian Photography and Fashion Agency Sticks and Stones Agency's Instagram account because of a photograph including pubic hair sticking out of bikini bottoms.[37]
2015	June	Product	Instagram bolsters up its advertising capabilities, testing ad formats that prompt users to do things such as installing an app, signing up for an email newsletter, or link to a retailer's site to purchase a product.[38]
2015	June	Product	Desktop website redesigned to look consistent with the mobile web site and app.
2015	September 9	Product	Instagram allows 30-second ads for all advertisers – twice the 15-second limit given for users.[39]
2015	September	International	Instagram ads go global.[40]
2015	September	Growth	Instagram hits 400 million monthly active users.[36]
2015	October	Product	Instagram launches Boomerang,[41] an app where the user shoots a one-second burst of five photos that is turned into a silent video that plays forwards and then reverses in a loop.[42]
2015	November 17	Product	Instagram kills off support from feed-reading applications.[43]
2016	February	Product	Instagram starts enabling users to easily switch between multiple accounts.[44]
2016	February 11	Product	View counter added to videos. Views were counted since November 19th, 2015, meaning videos posted prior to that date lack the view count data.[45][46]
2016	March	Controversy	Tech blogger Jad Ismail claims he has discovered over one million porn films on Instagram.[47]
2016	March 15	Product	Instagram switches its feed from chronological to algorithmically-driven best posts first.[48]
2016	May 11	Product	Instagram introduces a new look as well as an updated icon and app design for Instagram. Inspired by the previous app icon, the new icon represents a simpler camera and the rainbow lives on in gradient form.[49]
2016	May	Product	Instagram announces that it will launch new business tools – including analytics that allow users to see audience demographics, post impressions, and reach.[50][51]
2016	June	Growth	Instagram announces that it has over 500 million monthly active users.[12]
2016	June	Product	Instagram announces instant translation feature.[52]
2016	June	Product	API restrictions such as shutdown of feeds and restricted access to "followers"/"following" lists, and naming restriction for third-party applications to prohibit the text strings "insta" and "gram". The earliest announcements of these date back to November 2015.[53]
2016	July	Product	Instagram announces that it will start allowing users to filter out comment streams – giving users the choice about which comments are acceptable or not for themselves. It also starts allowing users the opportunity to entirely turn off comments.[54]
2016	August 2	Product	Instagram launches Instagram Stories. The product works like Snapchat Stories: users can post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that disappear.[55] Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom openly admits that the feature is copied from Snapchat, based on the success of Snapchat stories.[56] The feature is viewed as part of Instagram's goal of attracting users away from Snapchat.[57]
2016	August	Product	Instagram brings in Image Zoom, allowing users to zoom into images.[58]
2016	September	Product	Instagram removes the Photo Maps feature from its mobile apps, claiming that the feature was not widely used on the platform.[59]
2016	October 13	Product	Instagram launches a desktop client for the first time on the Windows 10 platform, which can be downloaded via the Windows Store.
2016	November 21	Product	Instagram launches live video, which allows users to broadcast live on Instagram, for up to one hour. Live videos on Instagram are not preserved, and are removed from the service once a user is done broadcasting. Instagram also launches disappearing photos and videos for the Instagram Direct feature on the same day, and images and videos sent using this method disappear after a certain amount of time.[60][61]
2016	December 6	Product	Ability to mark comments as liked (initially on mobile apps only)[62]
2016	December 15	Growth	Instagram announces that it has over 600 million monthly active users.[63]
2017	February 22	Product	Instagram launches a feature allowing users to post multiple photos in one post, in a slideshow-like fashion.[64]
2017	May 4	Product	Ability to upload pictures from mobile website introduced, but not yet videos.[65][66]
2017	June 13	Product	Archive posts on profile. Allowing users to not permanently delete posts but with the archive feature remove or reintroduce posts later without losing likes and comments. [67]
2017	August 15	Product	Threaded comments introduced. Previously, comments under posts were chronological, linear, and not structured, where responding to a user was only done through "@username" mentioning.[68]
2017	September	Competition	TikTok, a short video sharing service and social media service, launches.[69]
2017	December 12	Product	Ability to follow hashtags in addition to users[70]
2018	April 25th	Product	Data portability export options, allowing users to download an archive of their account data, as mandated by the General Data Protection Regulations.[71]
2018	May 22	Product	Instagram introduces the new "mute" feature that allows users to hide posts from certain users on their feed without unfollowing the account.https://theinstanderapp.com/
2018	June 20	Product	Instagram announces the launch of IGTV, a video platform intended to compete against YouTube. Users will now be able to upload videos of up to 10 minutes, while creators and accounts with larger audiences can upload videos of up to one hour. IGTV will have a dedicated button in the Instagram app, in addition to a standalone app released that same day.[72]
2018	June 26	Product	Instagram announces the ability to voice call and video chat through the direct messaging feature on the platform.[73][74]
2018	June	Growth	Instagram announces that it has over 1 billion monthly active users.[75]
2019	May 19	Product	Instagram announces "Shops" allowing for a virtual storefront on the app where users can buy and sell things completely within the app.[76]
2019	October	Product	Instagram removes the "Following" activity tab where users could see what the other users they were following would like, comment on and other such activities.
2020	May	Product	Instagram launches new "Guides" feature enables users to engage with wellness-focused creators to take part in mental health discussion.[77]
2021	October	Product	Instagram drops the IGTV tab and revamps its video format.[78]
2021	November	Product	Instagram adds option to remove single photos from carousels.[79]
2021	December	Growth	Instagram reaches over 2 billion monthly active users.[75]
2023	January	Product	In addition to the Story Highlights feature, Instagram is also introducing a new feature called "Live Story Replay." This allows users to save their live stories and watch them again at a later time, as well as share them with others.[80]
2023	February	Product	Meta announces paid verification on Instagram through a subscription service called Meta Verified. It originally launched in Australia and New Zealand to test the feature.[81]
2023	March	Product	Meta Verified is now available in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.[82] There is a waiting list for other countries.
2023	June	Product	Meta Verified is now available in India.[83]

See also

• Timeline of Pinterest
• Timeline of Snapchat
• Timeline of Twitter
• Timeline of Facebook
• Timeline of social media