My Instagram Was Hacked. Time for a New Chapter.

Of all the things to happen on my 25th birthday, this was the last thing I ever thought would happen.

My instagram was hacked.

So how did this even happen?  I honestly have no idea.  Sunday morning I woke up to do my usual edit and reflection on the day and found I was no longer logged into my account on my iPhone.  To my surprise I could not even log in.  My username was no longer recognized. My password was not the same.  My email was not recognized.  Nothing worked. It was a shock, but for some reason I was at peace. This time I discovered a Mac password manager, which is a software app that protects my online account.

Life is funny.

Life is actually very hilarious at times.  It’s easy to get upset, but its better to step back and objectively laugh at how funny things can be. Especially with timing.  You may or may not know this, but I had planned on leaving Instagram in the fall anyways.  It wasn’t going to be such a sudden change, but it was going to happen.  I was hoping to reach out to everyone and keep announcing to my followers I would be moving exclusively to Pressgram and my website for postings.  From there folks could then share and see via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, what ever they want to do with it.  I am very excited for Pressgram to be launched. I am proudly a part of the beta testing this late summer and I fully support what it’s all about. Now that my account is pretty much kaput, I am starting a clean slate and concentrating on getting my wordpress website ready to go for use with Pressgram. To learn more about Pressgram click here or the image to the left.

I met some really cool people on Instagram.

Probably the best part about Instagram was the community. I made great new friends from New Foundland, the UK, and even right here in Wisconsin. All because of Instagram.  The communities formed there were just astounding to me. So many passionate followers for different artists with different styles.  The coolest part is that Instagram launched and propelled many careers for many people, which is very cool.  I am glad I was able to connect with many of those people outside of Instagram and now I stay connected and continue friendships with them on twitter, facbeook, and other image sharing websites. The inspiring feedback and comments from others was the biggest attraction to me.

My new project and future book release.

I am not sure if I ever wanted to be this when I was growing up, but I guess I am now an aspiring author.  I have started a new project called Fragments that is a reaction to my Instagram getting hacked.  The responses that I received when I did share images on it were just amazing and were the foundation for Fragments.  To read more about my story and why I started my journey into writing, head over to the Fragments website by clicking here.

Why I am so excited for Pressgram to launch.

The biggest reason for me is to start a new community that has unlimited potential just like Instagram has, but without all the licensing bull crap.  The coolest part is that this community already exists within wordpress, but it is so hard to find each other on just the internet.  This provides a common channel for us to converse, collaborate, share and create through.  The wordpress community is full of people that care about content and Pressgram will for sure be generating some very awesome stories.  I can’t wait to see where it takes me and everyone else that is a part of it as well.

I have started testing Pressgram.

Last week I officially got my hands on an extremely rough version of Pressgram for round one of testing.  We are testing the login, capture of images, and filters.  Very simple, but important things.  All these small functions make the entire app useful as a whole.  John seems to be ahead of schedule in development and it’s exciting to see every baby step of this app as it grows into something amazing.