40 percent of the world's top 100 brands are already on instagram, a reason why the photo-sharing service appealed to Facebook. After the big blast of the social networking site here comes an era of photo sharing world. Instagram has picked up quick popularity when it comes to the latter.

Some 40 percent of the Interbrand 100 -- the world's most popular brands -- are active on the young service, according to a new study released today by Simply Measured. The study of how the brands were used on Instagram was released in conjunction with the debut of a new Instagram analytics tool.

“This aggressive growth has provided a massive marketing opportunity and top brands are taking that seriously,” Adam Schoenfeld, CEO of Simply Measured, wrote on the company’s blog Wednesday.

Of course, as an emerging platform, Instagram’s top brand list doesn’t exactly mesh with Interbrand’s. Instagram’s top brand is MTV with 813,201 users, followed by Starbucks with 758,146 users. Other top brands include Burberry, Nike, GE, and Gucci. McDonald's -- No. 6 on the Interbrand list -- brought up the basement of Instagram's top 10 brands, while Coca Cola -- the world's biggest brand -- didn't make the top 10.

The majority of brands on Instagram use them actively, with 25 percent posting at least one photo a week.

Luxury brands dominate the list of early adopters, including Audi, Tiffany & Co., Hermès, Gucci, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Armani, all utilizing the visual site to draw consumers’ attention to their products. In addition, a majority of brands are using Instagram independently, rather than simply using it as an app to cross-post to Facebook and Twitter.

Top ranking brands on Instagram lead in number of followers, photos, likes, and comments. MTV and Starbucks boast more than 750,000 followers, while 15 additional brands have developed audiences in excess of 10,000. As might be expected, there is a strong correlation between number of followers and engagement per photo.

45 percent of all photos are cross-posted, however engagement through Facebook and Twitter accounts for less than one percent of total engagement. This shows that despite the acquisition by Facebook, brands are using Instagram as an independent network, possibly due to its limited "share" functions.

While that's nowhere near Facebook's 98 percent adoption rate or Twitter's 94 percent, Simply Measured points out that Instagram in 2011 started with 15 million users and now has 80 million users. Instagram, which launched in October 2010, is expected to hit the 100 million user mark this fall, while Facebook took four years to hit that mark and Twitter five years, Simply Measured said.

Here is an interview from the founder of this wonder app, courtesy YouTube:

Kevin is CEO of Burbn, inc. -- the company that makes the popular iPhone app Instagram. Originally from Boston, Kevin moved to the Bay Area to attend Stanford to study Finance and Decision Analysis. Very quickly, he got wrapped up in the world of entrepreneurship and landed a gig at Odeo as an intern working with Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey. After a two year stint of working at Google on the Gmail team and Corporate Development, Kevin worked at Nextstop which was purchased by Facebook. Kevin then decided to take the plunge and start Burbn, inc. with a focus on creating a new way of communicating and sharing in the real world. Their first product, Instagram was an instant hit -- shooting to the top of the charts and gaining over 100,000 users in the first week.