Instagram Hits The 100 Million Member Mark

Instagram has announced today that its photo sharing service has just hit 100 million active users. Co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom said of the accomplishment, "It's easy to see this as an accomplishment for a company, but I think the truth is that it's an accomplishment for our community... Now, more than ever, people are capturing the world in real-time using Instagram--sharing images from the farthest corners of the globe. What we see as a result is a world more connected and understood through photographs."

It's a touching sentiment, and an even bigger milestone considering the massive user exodus after the new terms of service were announced last year. A new rule added to the ToS stated, "A business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

Obviously users saw that as a huge breach of personal privacy, and many cut their usage entirely. Instagram argued that it was not claiming ownership of users' photos or trying to sell them, but after a heated backlash, they ended up returning to an older version of the terms. The damage had already been done though, with the New York Post estimating that Instagram had lost up to 25% of its user base because of this.

With this recent news though, it does seem like the service has regained its footing, and is moving forward in a big way. The company was founded in October 2010, and within two years, was sold to Facebook for a staggering $1 billion. It's still a small fry in the social networking world (Facebook boasts over a billion users, while Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ all have larger populations as well), but with the level of growth we've been seeing, it probably won't stay that way for long.