Social network website Facebook announced that they have entered into an agreement to buy fun photo-sharing app Instagram for approximately $1-billion (R7-billion). The news comes only weeks after Instagram launched an Android application, after being exclusively available on Apple’s iOS for almost two years.
“I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook Timeline. The deal will only be approved once a customary closing condition have been met, and is expected to be made official later in this quarter.
“For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests,” Zuckerberg added.
Zuckerberg said that the fact that Instagram connects to more networks than just Facebook is important for the app’s development.
“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.”
While Facebook have approximately 845-million users, Instagram acquired over 30-million in the space of just under two years, which is an exciting prospect for Zuckerberg.
“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.”
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
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