mainstream, independant and niche companies

1. Types of companies

2. Mainstream
• Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing site that allows its users to share pictures and videos
either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking
platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Instagram was created by Kevin
Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app. The service rapidly
gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012 and over 300 million as of
December 2014.

3. Independent
• Abbey records was founded by Pete Doraine and originally operated in the Forest Hills, Queens,
section of New York City but soon moved to 10th Avenue in the Manhattan borough in mid-1949
with Doraine serving as president. In 1950 Abbey's experienced its first (and biggest) hit in a
recording of The Old Piano Roll Blues by J. Lawrence Cook. This disc, catalogue number 15003,
reached a peak position of 13, and had staying power for eleven weeks. Cook had recorded it in
1949, and then sold it to Abbey.

4. Niche
• Quidsi is a successful niche retailer with a large Internet presence. The company operates
diapers.com, which specializes in diapers and child care products. Quidsi is based in New Jersey
and came under the corporate umbrella of Amazon.com in 2011. Around the time of the
acquisition, Quidsi expanded its niche market to include cosmetics. In 2010, Quidsi and other
Internet niche retailers contributed to the $165.4 billion total for online sales that the U.S.
Department of Commerce reported. This demonstrates how the Internet makes it possible for
niche retailers to still find large numbers of customers.