Instagram has overnight announced that it has surpassed the 300 million user milestone. This means it has overtaken Twitter which has seen slowing growth and a total of 284 million users, which is some feat. The service has experienced an amazing 2014, winning the admiration from a new mainstream userbase and becoming a front runner for the must-have social network on home screens and in marketing plans alike.

Who are the Instagrammers? This recent data published by Piper Jaffray shows that the coveted 16-24 year old demographic are the new Instagram mainstream, ditching both Facebook and Twitter for Instagram and also Tumblr. Instagram was in fact launched to design influencers back in 2010, and since then has changed very little about its design and functionality - arguably one of the main reasons it had experienced such healthy growth.

Instagram is like the Apple of the social networking world; great product, no fussy marketing or promotion, no jumping the shark which you see all too often from Twitter and Facebook, and a coveted userbase. Don't forget also that Instagram is owned by Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg bought Insta in 2013 for $1bn. No small sum but a smart move for sure.

More news from Instagram is that it's launching verified accounts and it's cleaning up spam on the social network. More on both of those pieces of news are at the bottom of this post yesterday from the Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom.