Instagram grows with Network Effects
Textbook Network Effects: How Instagram Achieved Instagrowth
This article “Textbook Network Effects: How Instagram Achieved Instagrowth” published by the Harvard Business School talks about how Instagram was able to grow so fast with the help of its users. They begin the article by explaining how instagram started out as being very simple to use in order to attract users to use their app. You press about 3 buttons and your picture is posted for all your followers to see. Instagram is also made so that you don’t have to use any outside resources to edit your pictures, you can do it all right there on the app itself. These two aspects made instagram surge, but it wasn’t until more users began to use the app that its popularity really erupted.
This article relates to network effects in how each additional user that would use the application added more value to the application itself. With the more people that used the app, more of their friends downloaded the app. All close friends of friends who have the app must also use it in order to keep up with their friends life to know what is going on. ” Instagram was able to generate natural virality and maintained it by staying true to its original intent, focusing on simplicity and user experience” (Austin). This is a clear example of network effects. The definition of a network effect is when a product increases in value with the more people that use and interact with it. That is exactly what happened with instagram.