Since we first covered its launch back in October 2010, Instagram has become one of the fastest growing photo-sharing companies and iPhone apps. This week founder Kevin Systrom announced that they now have 4.25 million registered users, and that users are posting 10 photos every second, or around 900,000 photos per day. Not bad for a seven month old service, eh?

(via TechCrunch via Small Aperture)

P.S. Just for comparison’s sake, after 5 years Twitter has over 200 million members that post about 2,000 Tweets per second.

Google Street View photos won’t be limited to the exterior of buildings for much longer — the company has just announced Google Business Photos, a service that will allow Google websites to show the interiors of local businesses. If you thought having vehicles equipped with Street View cameras driven up and down every street in every city was a tedious project, for Business Photos Google is planning to have photographers sent to businesses that apply for the service. Crowd-sourcing the imagery would definitely be less labor intensive, but shooting inside private property requires permission.
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Production issues experienced by Canon and Nikon (caused by the earthquake and tsunami) may soon allow competitors to eat into their dominant DSLR market shares and, according to a story by USA TODAY, Sony is pegged as one of the main benefactors:

Canon has 44.5% of the digital SLR market, followed by Nikon at 29.8%, Sony with 11.9% and Olympus at 5.1%, IDC says.

[...] At a time when many Canon SLRs are hard to find, due to production issues, the Sony models are not only in amply supply, but discounted to sell with special promotions.

[...] Sony has the name recognition, and ample shelf space in prominent stores.

These gains would likely be limited to first time buyers who are looking for their first DSLR — camera owners already committed to Canon or Nikon’s mounts are unlikely to switch systems just because of a temporary shortage.

Sony could benefit from shortages of Canon, Nikon SLRs [USA TODAY]

Image credit: SONY A55 by 246-You

On Nikon’s question and answer Facebook app, a guy named Andrew Yu offered the idea of replacing the shutter button with two touch sensors and received the above response from Nikon. It’s an interesting look at how Nikon, camera manufacturers, and big corporations in general usually respond to ideas and suggestions from the general public.
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Slate magazine just published an interesting article on David Hobby and his popular blog Strobist, and shared this interesting example of how the photography industry is drastically changing due to low barriers of entry:

To get a sense of just how bad things are for professional photographers right now, the story of Robert Lam is instructive. When Time needed a photo to illustrate its “New Frugality” cover story in late 2009, it purchased Lam’s image of a jar of change from stock-photo agency iStockphoto. The going rate for a Time cover had typically been $3,000 to $10,000. Lam was paid $31.50. Nevertheless, Lam declared, “I am happy”—the payment was more than he’d expected the photo to generate, and he was delighted to have a Time cover in his portfolio. Veteran professional photographers were livid, calling Lam an “IDIOT,” among other unkind words.

The article also mentions how Robert Lam earns just $4,000 from his stock photography hobby, and that the Time cover photo was shot using DIY equipment purchased from a local sign store. What are your thoughts on the changing landscape for professional photographers?

Market research firm IDC released its findings about the worldwide digital camera market recently, with interesting details about the current market shares of camera manufacturers. From 2009 to 2010, Canon’s share remained perfectly constant at 19%, while #2 player Sony increased its share from 16.9% to 17.9%. Nikon also grew from 11.1% to 12.6%. The worldwide market for digital cameras is also growing — last year it increased 10% to 141 million cameras sold.
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The stock prices of major camera equipment manufacturers took a major — and expected — dive after the earthquake on March 11, 2011. Though they made a brief recovery afterward, they’re continuing to fall due to the risk that gear prices may soon skyrocket soar once decreased production isn’t able to meet demand.

(via Enticing the Light)

Goodbye Flip Video camera. Cisco announced today that they’re killing off the camera line in an attempt to refocus their consumer electronics business. They purchased the company behind the camera, Pure Digital Technologies, back in 2009. Flip Video cameras have long held the bestselling spots for camcorders on websites like Amazon by offering both HD video recording and convenient transferring with a built-in USB connection, but competition from rival camcorders and the introduction of HD video in smartphones (e.g the iPhone) has eaten into Cisco’s market share.

With the rate camera technologies are progressing on phones, makers of compact cameras are being forced to innovate lest their cameras go the way of the Flip. Perhaps that’s why manufacturers are moving into large sensor cameras as phones invade the compact camera market.

(via AllThingsD)

Image credit: Flip Cameras by rhondda.p

We may soon see an unexpected player enter the mirrorless camera market: CNET Asia is reporting that GE will be introducing a mirrorless camera by the end of this year:

[...] GE is looking to introduce its first Micro Four Thirds-like camera before the end of 2011. While no other details were revealed, it is clear that the company is hoping to be treated more seriously as a camera-maker. And with GE’s strategy focused on producing affordable cameras, it will be interesting to see how it will change the ILC industry. For consumers, this may also mean that ILCs will finally hit mainstream prices.

General Electric-branded cameras first hit the market in March 2007, and are also known by the brand name “General Imaging”. Who knows… maybe in the future they’ll be one of the dominant players in the camera market.

(via Mirrorless Rumors)

Image credit: General Electric Automatic Iron Box by Marion Doss

Matthew Rothenberg, the man who has led Flickr the past two years has Head of Product, announced today that he is leaving the service. In a message posted to his Twitter account, Rothenberg states,

Here goes: after 5 years, I will be stepping away from Flickr. Will miss working with such a talented, hard-working, and hard-drinking team.

Despite reassurances from Yahoo that Flickr is doing well, many will undoubtably look at this development and wonder whether the future for the service is as bright as the company would like us to think. TechCrunch also reported today that the situation inside the service isn’t too great.
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