SM PIER — The iconic Santa Monica Pier ranks with the Eiffel Tower, Disneyland and Times Square when it comes to the most popular places in the world in 2012 to take pictures with the Instagram smartphone app.
According to the company's blog, the pier and its world-famous Ferris wheel and inspirational views of the Pacific Ocean ranked 10th on the list.
The Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand topped the list with more than 100,000 photos taken, followed by the Siam Paragon shopping mall, also in Bangkok.
Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. came in third, followed by New York City's Times Square, the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park, Los Angeles International Airport, Dodger Stadium, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Staples Center and the pier.
Log onto Instagram's live photo feed to see the most recent photos of the pier — www.gramfeed.com/instagram/places/3001340
For those who have been living under a rock, Instagram is one of the most popular apps around, with millions of users who love to snap photos with it and alter them with scores of filters that can make even the most boring picture look interesting.
It's so popular that Facebook, the social networking site, paid $1 billion for it.
Instagram did come under fire this month when it announced that it would allow Facebook to let companies pay to place users' photos in advertisements that would run with the app. Some celebrities who make money on endorsement deals were outraged and threatened to ditch the app. Instagram withdrew the change, but not without losing some 4 million daily users, according to information by AppData, a metrics website.
Officials with Instagram said the AppData figures are simply not true. AppData's figures only account for users who log into Instagram using their Facebook account. That doesn't account for users who log in using just their e-mail addresses.
kevinh@www.smdp.com
