Facebook buys Instagram

Social networking giant Facebook shells out $1bn for mega-popular photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook has clearly been paying attention to how many of its users share photos using Instagram. Today the social networker announced a $1bn deal to bring the app into the Facebook family.

Instagram makes it quick and easy for people to share their shots on the likes of Facebook and Twitter or via text. It also includes a variety of filters that instantly add lo-fi, vintage effects to your pictures.

Championed by everyone from President Barack Obama to Justin Bieber, Instagram has reached over 30-million downloads for iPhone and was downloaded a million times in the first 12 hours when it recently became available for Android smartphones.

News of the deal was broken by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on his blog: “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.”

At $1bn, it’s the highest price for a profitless startup since Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn back in 2006. Unlike other Facebook buy-outs, Instagram will retain its name and continue to operate as a separate company.

“We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products,” Zuckerberg said. “At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”

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