Facebook look all set to buy photo-sharing app Instagram in a huge $1 billion deal.
Facebook will be closing the deal to home in on Instagram later this quarter. Not before time it seems and definitely a strategic move considering that Instagram was becoming popular as a social network and is climbing the ranks fast. It has been increasing in popularity considering it was only launched in late 2010.
Instagram took only 8 weeks to launch but was the result of over 1 year of work. The original idea for Instagram was originally a far more complex one but this was scrapped and a ‘back to the drawing board’ approach was taken. The resulting program was renamed ‘Instagram’ as it was felt that this was a far more apt name and captured the concept of what its purpose was – an instant telegram. On launch, the app went from just a handful of users to the top 1 in a matter of hours. This year alone, the Iphone app has almost doubled its number of users going from 15 Million to 27 million users since December.
The Instagram app allows users to share photos taken with their mobiles on Instagrams own site, Facebook, Twitter or via text message. A variety of filters can be used also to alter their photos. Users can then share/promote pictures and add comments.
Mark Zuckerberg said the Instagram team would continue to operate as a separate company.
He said ”We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products,” Zuckerberg said in the statement. “At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”
Are you an Instagram user or are you familiar with the Instagram app? What do you think of it’s proposed acquisition by Facebook? Let us know your thoughts by commenting on the box below. We’d love to hear from you.
