Mark Zuckerberg, announced today, that Facebook, the world’s largest social network, had agreed to buy Instagram for $ 1 Billion in cash and stock. This is a huge change for Facebook, which has more focused exclusively on acquisitions worth less than $100 million previously. This one is Facebook’s largest acquisition to date by far.
Instagram is the popular photo-sharing application, a social network built around cellphone photos. Founded only two years ago, the application allows users to add quirky and stylized filters and effects to their snapshots and share them with friends, who can “like” and comment on them. It has become one of the most downloaded applications on the iPhone, with some 30 million users, and Instagram released a first version of its application for Google’s Android operating system last week.
Even if the entire Instagram team – 13 employees – will be joigned Facebook, Marc Zuckerberg said that Instagram will grown “independently” and would continue to work with rival social networks.
Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom also announced, on the company blog, that Instagram had agreed to be acquired, confirming that “you’ll still be able to share to other social networks.”
The deal is expected to be closed later this quarter, according to Facebook’s statement.
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