Instagram Should Send Kodak a Thank You Card

Here's an irony for you: Instagram, a company that rose to prominence by adding filters to digital photos to make them look more like they were taken by a film camera, was just sold for $1 billion, while Kodak, the company that brought photography to the masses, is bankrupt, laments Lance Ulanoff of Mashable. Ulanoff wandered through Eastman Kodak's mansion recently, and "couldn't help but be a little depressed" by the fall of that empire.

"There’s a thread of connection between what Eastman did ... and what Instagram has done," Ulanoff muses. Both took something that had been strictly for the pros—for Instagram applying photo filters, for Kodak photography itself—and brought it to the rest of us. "The reality is that Facebook and Instagram probably do owe Kodak something—maybe a debt of gratitude. Without Kodak, there would be no Instagram, and I bet Facebook would be a much duller place, too." Click to read his entire column, which contains a wild detail about Eastman's home. (More Instagram stories.)