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Monday, April 9, 2012

Teh Internets Instagram Bought By Facebook

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 10:12 AM

Today, we couldn’t be happier to announce that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook...It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’l be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.

The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love. You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique.

Basically, this means that those crappy layer effects on top of boring photographs are never, ever going to go away.

UPDATE: The AP just tweeted that Facebook spent one billion dollars on Instagram. Holy shit.

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Yay! Even more of our (willingly provided) personal data for sale come IPO time!

Posted by Erin Resso

on April 9, 2012 at 10:18 AM

Facebook is dead. Its buying patents and customers with all that sweet cash-on-hand.

See also: AOLs deal with Microsoft:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/0…

Posted by six shooter on April 9, 2012 at 10:24 AM

I think that's about 950 million too much. That works out to $37 a user, most of whom are probably on Facebook anyway. I don't really get Instagram, and I get this even less.

Posted by arbeck

on April 9, 2012 at 10:27 AM

Now even your mom can be a hipster.

Posted by sirkowski

on April 9, 2012 at 10:29 AM

If you are a company that is not yet publicly traded but soon will be and you want to lock in a valuation on your stock in the minds of 'investors', one way of doing that is to acquire another company, pay for it mostly with stock, and announce a huge value for the company that you're acquiring. It may not be Instagram that is being overvalued in this deal, it's just as likely to be an overvaluation on Facebook itself.

Posted by Asdfgh on April 9, 2012 at 10:41 AM

I just started using instagram over the weekend and liked it. It's like Twitter for pictures but the simplicity of the app makes it very fun and more engaging than Twitter.

I don't have a FB account and will no longer be using it after this acquisition.

Posted by GlamB0t on April 9, 2012 at 10:43 AM

I don't get Instagram either, but then I'm not in the iPhone cult. Whatever, it's their money.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on April 9, 2012 at 10:44 AM

@5- Good call. Not that I think Facebook isn't entirely capable of making poor business decisions -Timeline, anyone?- but this somehow makes more sense from a further-enrich-Mark-Zuckerberg perspective.

Posted by mkyorai on April 9, 2012 at 10:45 AM

Instagram is (and hopefully not was) really cool. Think of it this way...filter out all the crap from Facebook and make it way more fun. The barrier to posting on Instagram is higher in that you need a photo, so all the mindless twitter and passive aggressive whining is much harder to do in Instagram. I prefer Instagram over Facebook and given a time constraint will always choose to check Instagram over Facebook.
I'm sure that Facebook will find a way to fuck it up though...

Posted by SPG on April 9, 2012 at 11:08 AM

Instagram? I've never heard of it.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on April 9, 2012 at 11:22 AM

Sometimes I think they do these ridiculous deals just to make any rational, talented or creative person want to give up, bang their head against the wall, cut off their ear and skydive off a bridge.

Keeps the competition at bay.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on April 9, 2012 at 11:32 AM

crappy layer effects on top of boring photographs are never, ever going to go away.

And don't forget square-cropping. I have no idea why it bugs me so much, but it does.

Posted by robotslave on April 9, 2012 at 11:44 AM

Everyone I know is on SpinnifyThis. You need to be in the alpha program, but it's where all the cool graphix geex hang.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on April 9, 2012 at 11:48 AM

@13 Thank good Will is here to tell us where the cool kids hang out. If more people had first heard of Facebook through WiS, MySpace might have survived.

Posted by mkyorai on April 9, 2012 at 12:57 PM