150 million photos now shared on Instagram

Instagram

Photo No. 150 million -- as snapped and Instagrammed by "@janefot."

Remember those Polaroids your grandma pulled out of envelopes or albums to show you way back when? Instagram brings that tinted, old-timey, Polaroid look and square dimensions to photos taken with your iPhone, giving users a choice of filters to apply to their photos. And since the free app launched last October, more than 150 million photos have been shared on Instagram's social network/photo-sharing site.

Since last fall, "we've seen more than 7 million people from all around the world share photos on our platform," Instagram said on its blog.

Instagram users are posting photos at the rate of 15 per second. And a look at some of those photos, shared on the blog, shows why: With the app's fun filters, photos become instant art or fodder for nouveau nostalgia.

Here's the first photo ever posted to Instagram, by app founder Kevin Systrom:

Instagram

Photos that have been Instagrammed can be posted not only to the app's site, but to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Foursqaure, Posterous, and can easily be emailed.

Instagram's small team of four employees is "constantly amazed by the range of photos" that are shared.

Instagram

San Francisco Giants fans celebrate their World Series championship.

"People use Instagram to snap photos of everyday moments with friends and family and also to document significant personal moments, like weddings and honeymoons," the company wrote on the blog.

"There are Instagram photos from major events like the World Series and the Grammys, and some Instagram photos have even made the national news. Artists and celebrities have begun to give fans a unique look into their lives through photos, while brands like Burberry have started to realize the power of communicating with their followers through images. Really, the app is as much a venue to a photo-sharing social network as it is about putting fun filters to your photos."

That's for sure. While some may worry about "oversharing" on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, Instagram represents the best king of sharing — although users don't have to post their photos if they don't want to.

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