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Instagram users uploaded over 800K photos of Hurricane Sandy, CEO calls it the company's 'biggest event'

Instagram users uploaded over 800K photos of Hurricane Sandy, CEO calls it the company's 'biggest event'

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While Twitter has proven itself as a highly effective way for average humans to share news and information during times of crisis, Instagram and its 100 million users are starting to carve out their own place in that same niche. At the GigaOm Roadmap conference, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom indicated that users of the photo-sharing service uploaded more than 800,000 photos tagged with the hashtag #Sandy last week, and said that it was "probably the biggest event to be captured on Instagram." Comparatively, Instagram users tagged some 85,000 photos during this year's Super Bowl — though the hurricane was an ongoing event, rather than one day of concentrated activity. Still, it's clear that citizens participating in the sharing of news is an ever-growing trend, with Instagram the latest service that consumers are increasingly turning to. Even the staff of Time found it to be a key tool in covering the hurricane.

Systrom also commented on last week's report that Twitter was considering adding Instagram-style filters to its mobile apps — he's not worried, noting that the two companies have a good relationship. He also emphasized the fact that Instagram is much more a community of photographers than a "filters app." While we're not surprised to hear Systrom claim a positive relationship between the two companies, Twitter's move to block Instagram from using its friend-finding API earlier this year paints a bit of a different picture.