Zuckerberg has shared a message on his Facebook wall and Kevin writes his feelings on the Instagram blog. Facebook has acquired Instagram. The popular photo sharing app / network was always seen as a parallel network to Facebook that is dedicated to photo sharing, however with Facebook deciding to acquire Instagram, the first thing on our mind is, will Instagram be merged into Facebook? And the answer is No. Both Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Kevin of Instagram have confirmed that Instagram would stay as it is and would keep growing independently.
CNN Money predicts the deal size to be as large as a billion, given the fact that Instagram’s last round of funding ($47 million) came at a valuation of $500 million. With stocks & cash, Instagram founders and Investors have sure made some real money with this deal.
The 17 month journey for Instagram is an inspiration for many. The free app that became an instant hit on iOS (iPhone) reaching 25 million users earlier this year. With Android version out, we am seeing more of my friends in India joining the network and thats a good thing! However we continue to wonder is Instagram would go down in history as a free iOS app that sold for a billion or a online service that Facebook acquired. What do you think?
Of course given the whole Instagram – iOS success story, followed by a recent Android launch & the whole Apple vs Facebook angle thrown into the mix, we can expect some name calling …
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