Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion

The Facebook monster is expanding, and we can’t get enough of it. In its largest acquisition yet, the social network purchased Instagram, the hugely popular photo-sharing application, for roughly $1 billion, the company announced last Monday.

Although Facebook has made many smaller acquisitions worth less than $100 million, this merger with the photo app giant is a notable move.

The Instagram service was founded two years ago and allows users to share and apply stylized filters to their photos. It has become one of the most downloaded applications on the iPhone, with nearly 30 million daily users and only nine staff members. Until a few weeks ago, Instagram was only available on the iPhone, but it has since expanded into Google’s Android operating system.

Last Monday, both companies expressed their commitment to run Instagram as an independent service within the Facebook realm.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive of Facebook, posted about the transaction on his Facebook page.

“I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook,” he said.

“For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

Zuckerberg continued on to say that Facebook intends on being mindful of Instagram’s already established strengths and features, rather than attempting to swallow the service. This is an important aspect of the merger, building and growing Instagram independently from Facebook.

“Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people,” said Zuckerberg.

He stated that Instagram’s interconnectivity with other online services is also vital to the overall experience. Facebook plans to keep features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to share (or not share) your Instagrams on Facebook and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

“This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. 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,” said Zuckerberg.

“We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.”