Instagram is one of those applications that has made it big but it kind of makes you wonder why. All it does is take a picture, put a filter on it and share it. It’s not a camera, it’s not a photo editor, all it does is put filters on photos. But it’s worth a billion dollars!

The more I think about it, the more I don’t quite get it. First off, it’s not even a full size picture, it’s cropped to be square. Then you put a filter on that screws with the color or the quality.  What you’re left with is something that’s kind of cool and I’m not sure why.

Being an Android user, I just got in on this. But the more I use it, the more I realize that what I like about Instagram is the community & integration, not necessarily the pictures I get from the app.

When people put pictures on Instagram it’s of something interesting. It’s not like 100 photos of their kid’s birthday party. The one-off pictures make every picture that much more intriguing.

Instagram also does a good job of integrating into Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social sites. Not to mention that sites like Twitter are also integrating Instagram into their apps as well.

I think Instagram has done a great job at building their own social network on top of a relatively simple idea. They are a perfect example of taking an idea, keeping it simple and doing it well. So well that Facebook is willing to shell out a billion dollars for a two-year old company.

I still go back and forth on Instagram. It’s cool, I like it, but I think it’s only because everyone else likes it.