“A million dollars isn’t cool, you know what’s cool?…A billion dollars” The Social Network
As you may well have heard today, Facebook have bought the photo sharing app Instagram for a staggering 1 billion dollars after just 2 years of the app launching.
This is the cherry on the top of what has been a great few weeks for Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Not only are they joining one of the most recognised brands to date but they recently released their app for Android users, that saw over 1 million downloads in the first 12 hours of it’s launch.
In a statement by Mr Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, he was very pleased and excited by the new collaboration. He ensured Instagram users that the functionality of sharing to other social media sites will not be affected ‘…We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook’.
At 1 billion dollars, the price is the highest for a profitless startup since Google. The sale comes shortly after Zynga, the
online games firm, paid 200 million dollars for OMGP, maker of Draw Something, an online version of Pictionary, that in less than two months had been downloaded over 50 million times.
But founder Systrom still can’t believe how it has taken off, he “…never expected the overwhelming response the app had received. We went from literally a handful of users to the No 1 free photography app in a matter of hours.” But Zuckerberg obviously liked what he saw and we are now moving forward into a new generation of online photo sharing and what will certainly be a very exciting time for both Instagram and Facebook.
Is this a good move for Instagram? What do you think Facebook will do to improve the photo sharing app? Let us know your thoughts.
