Jack Dorsey

Instagram surpasses 400 million active users, surging past Twitter

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Via: Business Insider

Long positioned as one of two social media platforms vying for the number one spot after, of course, the tech juggernaut that is Facebook; it may be time to give that #2 title completely to Instagram.

In a recent blog post on their website, the company formally announced that they had surpassed the 400 million active user mark, only a few months after they announced that they had hit the 300 million mark last December. This type of growth is not only the exact type that Twitter interim CEO Jack Dorsey, and CFO Anthony Noto were very open about not having on their site at the time of their last earnings call, but also places the usership itself of Instagram ahead of Twitter, which has been hovering around 300 million active users for the past year or so.

(Via heidicohen.com)

Beyond creating an interesting contrast to the growth of Twitter, this news is interesting for a number of other reasons. It is surely good news for Facebook, who actually purchased Instagram for $1 billion back in 2012, and has been looking to monetize the app in a number of ways in recent months. These include sponsored ads, and soon a targeted ad program will be rolled out. Advertising revenue generated by Instagram this year will be around $600 million, and is projected to as much as double in 2016 as well. Also, the app has gone truly global, as Instagram reports that most of the most recent 100 million adopters of the app live in Europe, Asia, or South America.

Instagram is the only other Facebook-owned property that generates advertising revenue at this time, and is rated very positively by clients thus far.

Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey’s other company, Square, to file for IPO

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Via: Source

The man has had somewhat of a magic touch these past few years, as recently returned Twitter interim CEO Jack Dorsey is in line for another pay day courtesy of his mobile payments device and app, Square.

Via Business Insider

As of this writing, not much in known about the offering, as it was filed confidentially. This leaves investors guessing as to the exact value of the company, and how many shares will be available.

However, the mobile payments company, which provides business owners with a straight forward, customer-friendly system to accept credit and debit cards via a smart phone and tablet app, and card-swiping tool (as seen in the picture), processed over $30 billion in payments last year. So if and when it does become publicly traded, investors will certainly be clamoring for a piece of the action.