Instagram, now owned by Facebook, has apparently overtaken Twitter with 300 million users.

According to Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom, talking to the BBC, there are now 300 million users of the photo sharing social app. With Twitter claiming to have 284 million users that puts Instagram considerably further ahead.

When you consider Facebook's 1.35 billion users it shouldn't be too hard to find more members to recruit to the Instagram brigade in the future.

One feature that both Facebook and Twitter use, which Instagram has now utilised, is blue ticks by accounts to show they are verified. This helps avoid fake accounts or celebrity impersonators and lets users follow people they want to. This has likely helped boost growth in the popularity of Instagram.

It sounds like Instagram will be adding more features in the near future with hints at creating event focused posting. It looks like Instagram could become more than a photo sharing platform offering news-like coverage of world events – something that Twitter currently does well.

Systrom says: "If you're interested in what's happening at the World Cup, you can peer in, see the football players and see what they're thinking and doing before they go onto the field. Those are the types of things that I want to enable over the next year."

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