Thanksgiving day was a record-breaker for Instagram

Thanksgiving is now over for those of us in the United States and Black Friday is well under way. While we won't know retail sales figures for the number one shopping day of the year for a few days, we do now have a staggering figure from the holiday itself. Thanksgiving was a big day for photo-sharing service Instagram. In fact, it was the single biggest day in the service's history.

Instagram, which became popular with iPhone users and then expanded to Android before being purchased by Facebook, has grown steadily, but the recent holiday provided a huge boost to the service and I am proud to say that my daughter and I were both contributors to this monumental moment (my humble contribution to the record is posted above).

According to Instagram, "Over 10 million photos that mentioned Thanksgiving-themed words in their captions were shared yesterday. For several hours throughout the day, more than 200 photos about Thanksgiving were posted every second. Overall, the day broke all Instagram records as we saw the number of shared photos more than double from the day before, making it our busiest day so far".

The announcement's accompanying chart shows the rise and fall throughout the day -- with traffic spiking at around 12:40pm PST when the service logged 226 photos per second that included the word "Thanksgiving". That number is simply mind-boggling.

So, what is next for the photo-sharing service? With the infusion of money and support from Facebook and a growing user-base thanks to expansion into Android and the web, it would seem that the sky is the limit. Will the next holiday surpass this one or has it hit its high-water mark? Either way, the service has its fans and seems to be here to stay, at least for now.

Photo Credit: Alan Buckingham