Instagram the popular photo-sharing app that allows users to take photographs, apply digital filters, and share them on social networks; is now on Android and has been acquired by Facebook for $1 billion.
It’s been a busy time for Instagram, on April 3rd they launched their app for Android devices and had over a million new users in twelve hours. A week later Facebook announced that it had snapped up Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock.
In a statement Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook said: ”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.”
This would sound like Instagram will become changed, loose it’s purpose and independence as it’s integrated into Facebook, but Zuckerberg goes on: ”Rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.” “We’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently.”
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom echoed Zuckerberg’s statements on the Instagram company blog adding “We’re psyched to be joining Facebook and are excited to build a better Instagram for everyone.”
Facebook plans on keeping features within the app that allow photos to be published on other social networks, and the ability to have followers and follow people who are not necessarily your Facebook friends.
Meanwhile the news of its acquisition to Facebook, Instagram leapt to the number one spot in the iOS App Store for the first time, breaking the news in a Tweet. Over in the Google Play store, it’s a similar story, Instagram has reached over 5 million downloads and has an Average rating of 4.6 form 432,769 users.
Instagram is #1 in the @AppStore for the first time ever! Thanks everyone! instagr.am/p/JQZkiGhQV9/
— Instagram (@instagram) April 10, 2012
Sources: Instagram on Feerbase, Instagram on Google Play, Facebook to Acquire Instagram
