Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion

[onehandle]

Source: CNN

Facebook has agreed to buy photo sharing network Instagram for $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock, the company announced Monday.

It's Facebook's biggest acquisition ever, in both price and reach. With around 30 million active users, Instagram has the largest audience of any startup Facebook has purchased, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post.

"We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all," Zuckerberg wrote. "But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."

Founded in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Instagram has just a handful of employees supporting its wildly popular photo app. The long-awaited Android version, released last week, racked up more than 1 million downloads in just 12 hours.

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-acquires-instagram-1-bullion-173400660.html

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Last week Instagram was opened to Android. This week Facebook buys it.

Instagram is now officially as cool as MySpace.

Delete app...

[anti-alec]

1. Never heard of it.

Yet another useless photo sharing app I won't use.

Tinypic.com works wonder for me.

[Papagoose]

2. This makes me sad

I actually enjoyed Instagram and figure this will eventually destroy it.

Don't get me wrong, I do use Facebook also, but I also "fear" Facebook in a way, so I hate to see these two end up merged.

[arcane1]

3. "providing the best photo sharing experience"??? Are you mad???

Facebook is TERRIBLE with photos!!! Only recently were they even capable of showing photos at actual size, and even now their "like" etc buttons cover up the bottom of the photo. And they take forever to load!

Seriously, facebook is in 1996 mode when it comes to photos.

[Gibby]

4. You said it

Facesuck photo stuff totally sucks

[drm604]

5. Wow. It's worth a billion and has 30 million active users

and I've never even heard of it.