Hey Kevin,

Check out my cat.

Wait, is that a totally uninteresting image from my life, gussied up with a gratuitous sepia filter? That’s right! It’s time to talk about everyone’s favorite new social mobile hipster vintage photo sharing service, Instagram!

I first downloaded the iPhone app a couple months ago, when Gruber posted it. It seemed well made, but neither he nor I could see the point in it. At the time, he said, “The app is nice, but I can’t see why I’d use the sharing service instead of Flickr.” That made all the sense in the world to me. I deleted the app before sharing a single photo.

Fast forward to last week, when Instagram announced it had surpassed one million users. That’s astonishing growth for a social network that only works on one mobile platform.

What’s going on here? I’m perplexed, but then again, I’m the guy who suggested we do an entire week on VYou, a site which now seems pretty doomed. I’m clearly missing a piece of the puzzle when it comes to evaluating new social networks. So, what makes Instagram such a hit?