Flickr Or Instagram?

Those who know me may say I am anti-Flickr, and maybe I am.
I recognize Flickr as a specialized community for professional photographers and something for the "cool" people, the different "artsy" group who work at agencies and wear purple leggings and yellow glasses. (Joking...kind of)
But I don't see Flickr for us ordinary hobby photographers. I don't see it as the solution to set up a contest among main stream people. I am perfectly fine with Facebook and Instagram. Please add your comments below if you disagree and want to introduce me to the world of Flickr :-)

What Instagram was missing for a long time was the Android app. Flickr took an advantage of this fact and introduced the Flickr app for Android in the end of September 2011. A part from that it was clear that Flickr's owner Yahoo had a clear mobile strategy in mind. However, Yahoo is a big company, and big companys usually move slow. Istagram is smaller, more innovative and faster.

To me it's about the simplicity, the app, the interface and the hottness. Instagram comes out with new filters and features more often than I change my socks (almost).
Instagram is growing twice as fast as Flickr and claims to have more than 14 million users and a speed of 1,3 million photos uploaded per day. They launched in the end of 2010 and are already big in China too.
The app is availible in 10 languages. I like the tagging feature and there are various ways for brands to use Instagram.
According to Yahoo, Flickr advertising pitch page there are currently 51 million registered Flickr members. I'm registered but haven't used my account in a couple of YEARS so I take that number with a grain of salt. Keep in mind Flickr was launched in 2004, that's 50 million users in 8 years.
Instagram is growing with 2 million new users per month. Let's do the math: It will take Instagram less than 2 years to pass Flickr. (Based on Flickr neither gaining or loosing users).
I recommend you to read this great article from Social Fresh talking about Instagram as the largest mobile social network.

Here is a fun video that explains Instagram.


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