Facebook has announced it is to buy Instagram, the popular
photo-sharing smartphone app. Facebook is paying $1bn in cash and stock for the
takeover.
Instagram is a mobile-only
photo-sharing app. It grew from 1 million users in January 2011 to 15
million in December 2011. It has 30 million users now.
With the Facebook iphone app, there
are 6 screens a user has to go through before a user can actually take a picture. With
Instagram, there is one.
Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to continue to develop Instagram as a separate brand, allowing it to post to rival networks.
The app is free and allows users to apply 17 filters to the pictures they take, changing the color balance to give the images a different feel - before they are uploaded.
It has proven hugely popular. The firm says that it has more than 30 million users uploading more than 5 million new pictures every day.
The company has "roughly" 10 employees, according to the Associated Press.
"We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience," Mr Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page.
"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."
He added: "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."
Instagram's FAQ says it had previously raised $7.5m in funding from three venture capital firms and "a small group of angel investors".
When it launched on Google's Android platform last Tuesday, more than one million people downloaded it within 24 hours.
Mr Zuckerberg's post says Instagram's employees will be joining Facebook when the deal is completed.
The deal marks the second time in four months that Facebook has taken on staff from another social network.
In December, it announced it was hiring the co-founders of the location-based check-in service Gowalla. The network closed down shortly afterwards.
