Last week I received an email on one of my many and varied (trying to dodge the spammers and UCE) email accounts, from Instagram, suggesting I have a look at new posts from various people.
Now, I know that Instagram is owned by Facebook, so I assumed it was just some form of selling-in, especially as I am friends with everyone contained with the email. But the nickname was different to the one I used on Facebook.
Which means that, at some point, I’ve signed up for Instagram. I’ve no idea when or why. You can’t find out when unless you’ve posted something. I’ve blogged before that I don’t need to.
So, I went to the Instagram web site, took a guess at the password and lo and behold I was able to log in.
Deciphering the icons top-right of the home page to get to my profile page, I discover that I have 27 followers on Instagram.
That’s 27 people who have yet to notice that I have never posted anything. One is a company, one is a private account, the other 25 I’m friends with on Facebook. Bizarre.
What’s more worrying for me is that I honestly don’t remember setting up the account at all. I never visit the web site and I haven’t got an app installed anywhere. I don’t post and I don’t follow. I wonder how many other virtually dead accounts there are, making Instagram’s numbers look good?
I also had better go and check out which other sites I’ve forgotten I signed up to. I found some old emails from Foursquare and Gowalla. Pinterest? Who knows.