Instagram: The History

 Blog Post #4 

Instagram was founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom. Originally the app was named “Burbn” this was an app created to help connect people from around the world by publicizing each individual's check-in whenever they had traveled somewhere new. Systrom began negotiations with venture firms for funding and earned himself $500,000. The search for a team to help with the app began shortly after he received the funding money. The search didn’t take long as he found Mike Krieger who is now known as the cofounder of Instagram. After the two began working together, they had realized how similar their app was to another already well established app called Foursquare. Systrom and Krieger decided to take advantage of the rising trend of communication through images to their advantage and ultimately decided to change the name of their app to what we now know it as, Instagram. The name comes from a combination of “instant camera” and “telegram” which makes sense as the app is solely based around the use of cameras and digital photos that their users can post to their own accounts for friends to see. This name made a lot more sense than the original name as “Burbn” simply came from Systrom's interest in whiskey and bourbon. 

The app was released to the public on October 6, 2010 and in just three short months, Instagram gained 1 million users. Another 2 million users were on the app in the following month. The rapid growth of Instagram was unlike what many other social media founders had seen occur with their apps. To hit the milestone of 1 million users, it took Facebook 10 months, Twitter 24 months and Tumblr 27 months. The original version of Instagram gave their users the opportunity to post photos, like, comment and follow other users. The first change of the app occurred in 2011. This change was to the appearance of the icon of the app which was made to look like the back of a polaroid camera, there were also some adjustments made to the camera settings in the app as well. In 2012 the app was accessible to Android users instead of strictly Apple users. This addition brought in another 50 million users to the app within the month of April in 2012.

Instagram has changed our world by becoming a platform people now use daily for communication. Although the app started out as just a space to share photos with friends and family, over time the app changed allowing for it to become the large platform we now know it as. Through the years Instagram has made many changes to the app allowing the rise of influencers to occur. In November of 2013 Instagram introduced sponsored posts. This addition helped rebrand the app as an advertising platform. A month later, Instagram created “Dm’s” or “direct messaging” for users to use to communicate with other users privately. The addition of this helped create another form of communication within the app that was a more private way of one user talking to another. 2013 was the year of growth for the app as in the same year Instagram added in the option for their users to post and share videos to their personal pages. In 2014, the option to have a business account was added to the app.This helped people track the amount of accounts that had interacted with their page and who they had reached weekly. 

Blog Post #4

The History of Instagram

The invention of Instagram changed the way people communicate in ways that no app had done before. You could communicate through a simple post of photos, videos, commenting on someone's post, messaging people privately through dm’s, etc. The app has something for everyone whether you are a person just looking for a social media platform to keep up with what your friends are up to, a business looking to sell products and wanting to advertise on a platform that a good amount of people will see, or if you want to keep up with celebrity news, politics, world news, local news, sports news, so pretty much any type of news you like reading about, it’s all located in one spot. 

Instagram was bought out by Facebook back in 2012 for $1 billion. Instagram only had 13 employees when it was bought, so it was seen as inconceivable to buy a company like them for such a high price. Many people had speculated that Facebook bought Instagram just out of fear thinking that the app would be hard to compete with especially when their demographics overlapped as much as they did. This was a smart decision for Facebook to make as the app is still one of the biggest social media platforms to this day. 

For the history of Instagram, I read this article and also from this  article from Britannica.   

Value of Free Expression - Promote Innovation

Blog Post #3 

Eight Values of Freedom

Something that really caught my eye when learning about the eight values of freedom was to Promote Innovation. With this value it is giving us insight of how a community in which free speech is valued and protected is likely to be a more energized, creative and interesting society as the citizens a part of this community fulfill themselves in ways that are diverse and interesting. This is something I value because when I think about conversations with a large group, I count on it being filled with diversity that may be solely based on people's beliefs, opinions, and views on numerous topics. It always makes things more exciting and gives you different perspectives you may not necessarily find yourself looking through normally but when you surround yourself with people who differ from you it can add something new to the conversation and maybe cause you to change an opinion about a thing or two. 

One of the eight values of free expression include, Promote Innovation. This is something that stuck with me as I am someone who believes in having the First Amendment right and allowing everyone to have their own rights to say what they want no matter what others opinions are on what you are saying. This is something I value because it allows everyone to gather their own opinions and express their beliefs and opinions as they please, allowing people to hear from different perspectives and do what they please with what they are hearing. Giving people the right to say what they want helps stay clear of very vague conversations and almost creates a barrier of what information people can gather especially when it refrains from staying within what a group or community of people agree with. Allowing people to share any of their thoughts especially ones that may be controversial such as politics, being more open about allowing everyone that same First Amendment right gives a conversation more things to be discussed but also giving people the respect that their opinions are just opinions and there is no right or wrong. 

Promoting Innovation is more likely to create more interesting and energized conversations with citizens because no one is being blocked from sharing their beliefs or opinions. This is important because there are many times that because someone has a difference of opinion they are not respected and can be overlooked for not agreeing with the rest of a group or community. When you are discussing matters of opinions everyone has a right from the First Amendment that you have the right to freedom of speech and yet it is still not fulfilled especially when it comes to social media. As we have seen in the past, social media does have the right to take away your right to the First Amendment but all it does is create a filter on the information they are letting be put out to the users of the app. When we see this occur, less creative and diverse conversations are being held and instead replaced with like minded people being put on each other's feed and the same ideas being floated around instead of expanding with new perspectives that may go against what these people have made opinions on. Instead of creating more diverse conversations, the same ones just repeat over and over and become overall boring to society. If everyone had the same opinions there wouldn't be anything exciting or new to really discuss.

The History and Workings of the U.S. Supreme Court

 Blog Post #2

Supreme Court

After watching the two embedded videos and reading an article the History Channel had published on the Supreme Court, I have taken away from these resources and learned about what the Supreme Court justices do, what the Supreme Court consists of, and how the decisions these justices make have an effect on the past, present, and future of this country. 

Through the article and the videos I learned a lot about the Supreme Court that I was unaware of beforehand. This includes the first meeting being postponed by a day because the justices have issues with transportation. During the first meeting on February 2nd 1790, there were no cases to be heard by the Supreme Court and that ended up being the case for the entire first term this justices served in. I learned that the first decision was handed down on August 3, 1791 and the next day the court heard arguments for the case West v. Barnes. The article informed me that for more than 100 years after the foundation of the Supreme Court, justices were required to hold circuit court twice a year in each judicial circuit until it was formally abolished in 1891. This was abolished because it was a grueling duty for the court. I also learned new information about the role the chief justice plays within the Supreme Court and how important their part is within the justice. The chief justice is required to sit on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, and also presides over trials of impeachment against the President of the United States. I was unaware that Congress altered the number of Supreme Court seats which has fluctuated anywhere between five or up to ten seats. This has occurred six times in total over the years until Congress set the number of seats to nine in 1869 and has remained that number ever since. 

The most important take-away point about the Supreme Court for me is the importance these justices have on our branches of government. Not only is the importance of these justices taken out on the three branches of government, but also how developed our nation is today. The Supreme Court has the ultimate jurisdiction over all the laws within the United States, and they are also responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of these laws. Having the final say on the laws we as citizens is quite important seeing how if they don’t set the right laws there can be issues that arise because of it. These nine justices also have the power to check the actions of the other two branches of government including the executive branch and legislative branch. This sets them as the head of the judicial branch of government as they oversee the rest of the branches and everything needs to be approved by these justices before anything is set. The chief justices are not only the highest judicial officers appointed to the court but they are also the most influential. Without chief justice John Marshall, we wouldn’t have had that defined relationship between the judiciary and the rest of the government. 

The most surprising thing I learned was how the court didn’t hear any cases in its first term. This was surprising to me because it makes me wonder what they were doing during the time that there were no cases being heard. I also found it surprising that it was required for the Supreme Court to hold circuit court twice for more than 100 years before it was abolished. One would think someone would have realized how exhausting it was for the justices and if it was able to be abolished in 1891 it makes you wonder if it was even necessary for the Supreme Court to be held to for years and years. I also found it quite surprising that it was Cheif Justice Earl Warren that gave citizens the Miranda Right that ultimately is the right to remain silent warning police officers give out when arresting people. On top of being apart of the decision for Miranda Rights, he was also the one involved with the final decisions on Brown v. Board of Education, and Loving v. Virginia which abolished the prohibition of interracial marriages. These were all surprising to learn about because I knew about these cases but never knew which Chief Justice was apart of the outcomes of the cases and throughout the trials. 

Top 5 Sources of News and Information

Blog Post #1

5 News Sources and Information

As an 18 year old girl, I tend to spend a majority of my time on social media and because of that it has become a key news outlet for me. When I think of social media the first two apps that come to mind are Instagram and Tiktok as those are the two that I find myself using the most. 

Instagram:

Whenever I am on Instagram no matter what I am looking at whether it be a story post or just my main feed on the home page of the app, I always end up finding out information I didn’t know of beforehand. This can range from something happening in the music industry, celebrity information, political information, etc. News outlets tend to post about their stories on their social media pages where I tend to be more of the time rather than on their actual website or app. Instagram helps me stay up to date with things I am interested in which benefits me because it is all located in one place that I tend to visit a majority of the time I am on my phone. 

Tiktok:

As many are aware, Tiktok is a newer social media app that has rapidly became a very popular app. With the amount of users it has brought to the app, it should be no surprise that it has become an app with a lot of information for people to watch and learn about. It doesn’t matter what the news is about whether it’s celebrity news, music industry announcements, political information, technology updates, new products, etc. this can all be located in short videos found in their app. I tend to use Tiktok as a main source for the information I look at just because of the convenience it brings. These short videos are full of viable information that I may be interested in and it leads to more peoples own input on these topics and expanding the information given when another person adds onto what the original post may have been about. Although the app sometimes appears as just a mindless scrolling tool that many teens and adults have found themselves falling down the rabbit hole of, Tiktok has shown that it is more than that as more and more news outlets switch over to Tiktok and share information with the users whether they follow their accounts or they happen to pop up on ones for you page. 

Fox News:

Fox News is a good news source that I tend to use when I am looking for something relevant within either political information or even just entertainment news. This news source not only gives you updates about world events, politics and breaking news stories, but also keep you informed on celebrity news information, sports games and music news as well. This is a good source for receiving information if you are someone that likes a variety of things and enjoys either watching the news or reading articles on information about what is going on in today’s world. 

CNN:

Growing up I would watch CNN10 in my history classes which gave me useful information about what is going on in the world today and did it relatively fast so I didn’t have to read articles or listen to the news for a long period of time. This source is helpful for someone who doesn’t have a large attention span but still wants to be kept up to date with events happening around the US. I found this helpful when I was younger because it gave me an insight on information I didn’t really know about and gave me a quick overview daily on what had happened within the previous days and gave me a start when it came to learning more about different news stations and platforms that are designed to fit peoples needs and wants within a news story especially when it came to attention span lengths. If you are someone who doesn’t like listening to the news for too long but still like to be informed on what is happening around us, I recommend CNN10.

ESPN:

As a person who loves watching sports and attending various sports games, I have found that the ESPN app on my phone has been a huge source of news updates for me within the sports world. If you are someone that is interested in sports I recommend using this platform as a news source because you can get updates and information on your favorite teams and players and have the app cater towards your interests within the sports community. It’s also helpful when you want to find out when specific games are being played or get updates throughout the games on what is going on throughout if you don’t have access or don’t feel like watching a game at the moment but still want to know what is going on.

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