How Instagram Beat The Other Photo Sharing Apps

Picplz and Path are the ones you’ve heard of. But there are dozens more you haven’t heard of. How did Instagram beat them out?

Back in September of 2010 I wrote 10 Ways To Apply Game Mechanics To Non Game Services. Instagram did just that. In addition to a great user interface, lightning fast filters, and Facebook (and other social networks) integration, Instagram got the game mechanics right.

The Instagram Popular Photos tab turned taking photos into a contest for the Instagram community. It built on the fun aspects of filters, the social aspects of sharing and liking, by adding a friendly form of competition. People wanted to see their photos appear on the Popular tab, and while the number of Likes a photo received wasn’t the only factor that caused a photo to appear there, it was a big one.

There are many more reasons Instagram grew to 30M users in just over a year and a half–but one of the biggest is it’s smart use game mechanics. After all, what user doesn’t want to be Popular?