Facebook has announced it will be acquiring Instagram for cash and equity amounting to one billion dollars. So what is Instagram and is it worth the one billion dollar tag? Time will answer the second question, while we answer the first.
1. Instagram is a free photo sharing app that lets users click pictures from their mobile phones, apply an optional "filter" to the image and share it with their friends via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram's own social network.
2. Instagram launched as an iPhone app in Apple's App Store on October 6, 2010. By December 2010, Instagram had one million registered users. By July 2011, Instagram users had shared over 100 million photographs. It reached 10 million registered users in September that year. The number had hit 30 million by April 2012.
3. Instagram previewed the much-awaited Android version of its app at
SXSW Interactive conference in March 2012. The Android version received over 430,000 pre-registrations and when it finally
released on 3rd April 2012, it was downloaded
over a million times in less than 12 hours.
4. Apple named Instagram as app of the year for 2011 saying the app makes it "near-impossible to take a bad shot." Zuckerberg has
confirmed that, despite the acquisition, Instagram will continue to run
independent of Facebook, at least initially.
5. Facebook's billion dollar valuation of Instagram makes the less-than-two-year-old startup more valuable than 161-year-old The New York Times Company. The New York Times Company, publisher of media heavyweights like The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe, amongst others, was valued at 946 million dollars based on yesterday's closing price at the NYSE.
Instagram for Android - ReviewComparison - Instagram for iOS vs Android Image courtesy: Jzollman Jessica Zollman