Top 5 Instagram Facts You NEED to Know

#5: When Facebook Acquired It, Instagram Had 13 Employees

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Snapchat Vs Instagram

By now, everybody and their grandmother have heard of Instagram. Okay, maybe not everyone. But back in 2012, the year that the now-famous photo sharing company was bought by Facebook, they only had 13 people working for them. It's hard to imagine a company with a product used by over 30 million people and only 26 hands doing all the work! Add to this the fact that only 6 of the 13 were technicians, and you have a company with a truly remarkable work ethic. Given the baker's dozen labor pool, the small staff must have had a field day at the news of the $1B Facebook dropped on the purchase.

Have you tried everything to up your Instagram game? Are you still struggling to get your hands on all those precious likes and comments? The solution is simple: throw a filter on that bad boy. According to a study by Yahoo Labs, you’re 21% more likely to get views and 45% more likely to receive comments on your pics if they’ve been touched up. However, on the other end of the spectrum, it’s been discovered that images with low levels of brightness and saturation could be a sign of depression. So, next time your finger is hovering over the “share” button, make sure your picture says Caribbean, not Antarctica.

Shocking! But… how surprised are you really? According to the DailyStar, the videos in question are being uploaded using long Arabic hashtags, which makes it difficult for the staff at Instagram to moderate and block. While most of the dirty English-language hashtags have already been hashtag-cockblocked, it appears that by using a different language, users have been able to bypass Instagram’s policies. Instagram has a strict no-nudity policy, but these videos went way past no shirt no shoes and featured scenes of full on doin' stuff. While the videos have since been removed, there is no telling what else is hiding in the belly of this techno-beast.

Today’s society craves instant gratification. Lines, traffic, waiting: these things aren’t for us. Our fast-paced environment needs a social media platform that can keep up. Instagram has surpassed Facebook and Twitter for exactly this reason – it combines knowledge with visual pleasure in a format that caters to relaxed dissemination. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that IG posts get over 300% more interaction than Facebook posts, and over 1300% more than tweets. After all, we’re living in a visual culture, and Instagram understands this. That’s why they’ve gone from 30 million users to over 500 million users in just four years. The Insta-train is moving fast and filtered, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

Drugs, and the innovative ways to distribute them go hand in hand. In 2013, a BBC investigation discovered that some Instagram users were advertising illegal drugs on the popular photo-sharing site. Dealers would post images of their “stash” – from pot to poppers – along with their asking price. A mixture of laziness and pure drug-addled genius, buyers could finalize their deals through a variety of instant messaging apps. In response to their new reputation as everybody's connection, Instagram has blocked search queries related to the drug trade. But with certain narcotics becoming more and more acceptable, it is only a matter of time before InstaHigh is the hottest new app. Have you ever stumbled across porn on Instagram? Do you think your 13-person company is worth $1 billion? For more awe-inspiring Top 10’s and insightful Top 5’s, be sure to subscribe to MsMojo.