What / how / if should I use INSTAGRAM?

[chasvanblom]

I hear so much ta-do's about the web-service, INSTAGRAM.

Is Instagram a competitor to Facebook or what other web-service offers similar features to Instagram? - so I can compare...

[Loreen]

Instagram has been owned by Facebook since the early last year.

Only you can decide if you should join or not. You need to figure out what your reasons would be to join. Do you just want to post pictures and have people see them so they can follow you or like your pictures? Do you want to do this and keep your Instagram private so only friends and family can see your pictures?

If you want an audience for your pictures, you need to remember to use hashtags liberally and post pictures that appeal to a very wide variety of people.

Keep in mind that Instagram can only be accessed by a smart phone. You can call up your account on a computer, but you can't do anything from the computer but look at statuses. You cannot comment or like any pictures.

If you want to create a photo blog, my suggestion would be http://www.tumblr.com. You can create photo blogs there as well as text blogs. With photos, you can post many at a time, or one a day with the queue feature. It's an easy site to use. Like with Instagram, you should use hashtags so people can find your pictures, but, unlike Instagram, you do all of this through your computer.

Facebook also has the "album" feature, so you could post there as well. Another option would be http://www.squidoo.com.

But, the choice is up to you. Which one, or ones, would suit your needs or wants?