Social networking giant, Facebook is buying Instagram, the company behind the popular photo-sharing app 'Instagram' as confirmed by Mark Zuckerberg today.
"I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook."
This is the first time that the said company is acquiring another company and the product that has a well established community and Zuckerberg is looking forward to bringing the two companies working together.
"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.
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."
The popularity of Instagram started
way back its release on iTunes last October 6, 2010 and just two months later (December 2012), Instagram had reached 1 million registered users. It continues to grow the next year with five million users on June 2011 and surpassed the ten million mark of registered users by September of the same year. As popularity becomes unstoppable, developers of Instagram further pushed it to a larger market by releasing an Android version of the app last April 4, 2012. It reached as high as 1 million within 12 hours after the release. As of today, there are 227,919 android users who are using Instagram.
It seems that both parties are happy with the acquisition. In a blog post wrote by Kevin Systrom, Instagram CEO, he describes the humble beginnings of Instagram and how it reached a large community that never once imagined and how he hopes to have an exciting future in the arms of facebook.
"When Mike and I started Instagram nearly two years ago, we set out
to change and improve the way the world communicates and shares. We’ve
had an amazing time watching Instagram grow into a vibrant community of
people from all around the globe. Today, we couldn’t be happier to
announce that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook.
Every day that passes, we see more experiences being shared through Instagram in ways that we never thought possible. It’s because of our dedicated and talented team that we’ve gotten this far, and with the support and cross-pollination of ideas and talent at a place like Facebook, we hope to create an even more exciting future for Instagram and Facebook alike." - Mike (Instagram CEO)
Every day that passes, we see more experiences being shared through Instagram in ways that we never thought possible. It’s because of our dedicated and talented team that we’ve gotten this far, and with the support and cross-pollination of ideas and talent at a place like Facebook, we hope to create an even more exciting future for Instagram and Facebook alike." - Mike (Instagram CEO)
Both Facebook and Instagram CEOs further clarified that the acquisition of Instagram will not put the photo-sharing app into nowhere but will continue to be as it is and both will strive hard to bring the popularity of Instagram to a much wider people. Instagram CEO further said they will work on adding new features for the app and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.
