Instagram now sees more traffic on Mobile than Twitter

The mobile phone has long been Twitter's dominion--the social network's short-form content is perfect for the mobile phone, being easily created and digested on even the smallest screen.

But another social network has managed to take over Twitter's traffic, and it's one you might not have expected. Instagram now sees more daily users than Twitter.

Instagram has exploded in popularity. Even as soon as last March, Instagram had as few as 1 million daily users. That compared to Twitter's user count of just shy of 6 million. Over the intervening months, however, Instagram has had exponential growth. April saw them with ~1.5 million users, May with 2 million, and then June shot up to 4.7 million daily users. In August, the company saw a little over 7 million users. Twitter, on the other hand, saw just shy of 7 million.

The most remarkable stat, however, might to compare time: Instagram saw users spending 4.5 hours using the app in August, while Twitter had users using it less than 3.

It should be noted, however, that both companies are growing. Instagram's explosive popularity is not at the cost of Twitter's. As the internet becomes a more instagram part of daily life, web services have become increasingly part of how we view and access the world. The internet has become part of our life, and these social networks have become another way we talk, thanks to the smartphone.

Pundits, of course, are using this to cry the obsolescence of the website. Said George Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, "The web will become the AM radio of digital.” Basically, the belief is that websites are going to be replaced by apps.

I don't buy it. Sure, we're going to see an increasing number of hybrid platforms, but in the long-term, apps have some serious shortcomings compared to the web. Until apps are made more robust and capable of leaving their isolated silo, the web will remain a bastion that people retreat to.

The Daily