Breaking news: Facebook acquires Instagram for one billion dollars.

[pastarocket]

Mark Zuckerberg made this announcement today about Facebook buying Instagram. The acquisition price is $1 billion US:

I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

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.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. 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.

These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram's experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure.

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.

News article:

Breaking: Facebook to Acquire Instagram for $1 Billion - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsD

[dicecube]

facebook will put up a ton of ads on instagram

[twitchyzero]

is there a reason why instagram is so popular? Is the photo editing options just that much better than other mobile photography apps?

[Drow]

Yah... I never got the hype of instagram. I can see girls using it, but when i see guys using it seems kinda weird to me

[Meowjin]

instagram timeline.

essentially photo twitter.

[Supafly]

I dont think this is breaking news.....honestly, who really gives a shit about facebook other than creeping the pics of Jailbait "friends"??...lol

[Liquid_o2]

The valuation of all these companies is out of whack. A billion dollars for a photo sharing program??

[GLOW]

i don't even know wtf instagram is

[jackmeister]

tech bubble 2 coming right up.

[BillyBishop]

Originally Posted by Liquid_o2

The valuation of all these companies is out of whack. A billion dollars for a photo sharing program??

If I recall, Instagram has something like 27 million users. Facebook generates revenue through traffic; with some sort of a deeper integration than what currently exists, I'd think that a lot of money could be made

[b0unce. [?]]

just because you take a picture in black and white, doesn't make it good.

[Manic!]

Way overpriced imo. For a billion why couldn't Facebook just make it's own app and market the crap out of it on Facebook.

[dasani604]

Originally Posted by MajinHurricane

instagram timeline.

essentially photo twitter.

You got that right. It's as annoying as Twitter. I don't understand the appeal of it since the pictures look like shit anyway, but I suppose that's why I don't understand the point of Twitter. It bothers me that people need to use Instagram/Twitter in a way that requires them to post about their life on a daily basis but I guess attention whores will be attention whores

[StylinRed]

OMG OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG


THIS IS A WORLD CHANGING EVENT!!!!!!!


BREAKING FUCKING NEWS INDEED!!



:P


Sepia Cats for All!





i've got no idea why this app is so popular it just makes me think the photo editing/sharing software in the iphone must stink

[Alby]

this just means facebook failed in the aspect of sharing photos with family and friends. instead of improving, they buyout whatever makes them get more traffic

[sonick]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

is there a reason why instagram is so popular? Is the photo editing options just that much better than other mobile photography apps?

Originally Posted by dasani604

I don't understand the appeal of it since the pictures look like shit anyway

[Tim Budong]

large company eats up small startups that are popular
no problem with this
hipsters boycotting mainstream...thats...the hipster thing
i see nothing wrong with this picture

people comparing this purchase vs Google's purchase of youtube. fucking stupid.

[shawnly1000]

Originally Posted by jackmeister

tech bubble 2 coming right up.

Started a while ago with IPOs for Groupon, LinkedIn, Yelp, Angie's list, etc

[1exotic]

what is an Instagram

[sonick]

Originally Posted by 1exotic

what is an Instagram

An app that makes your photos look like they were taken with an old, shitty, low-quality camera.

[spideyv2]

prepped for more LG bathroom pics

[dangonay]

Originally Posted by Manic!

Way overpriced imo. For a billion why couldn't Facebook just make it's own app and market the crap out of it on Facebook.

How many times has Google or other companies tried to make their own versions of an existing app or service only to fail miserably?

Sometimes it just makes more sense to buy something established and take their user base with you.


Anyone feel like they're in the wrong business? Forget developing new technology - just come up with the next social fad and you too can become a billionare.

[MR_BIGGS]

Originally Posted by jackmeister

tech bubble 2 coming right up.

Originally Posted by shawnly1000

Started a while ago with IPOs for Groupon, LinkedIn, Yelp, Angie's list, etc

Help wanted: tech firms scramble for talent - The Globe and Mail

Down the street from Research In Motion Ltd., (RIM-T12.980.362.85%) where a new CEO is firing senior managers at a firm whose growth has stalled, hundreds of smaller technology firms are having the exact opposite problem: Growing too fast, they can’t find enough people to hire.

In the Kitchener-Waterloo area, deep within the technology ecosystem that blossomed as RIM grew into a global giant, companies are struggling to fill roles even as their growth helps anchor the region's reputation as an expanding high-tech hub. Some are large firms experiencing the dramatic growth that accompanies global expansion; others are small outfits that require extremely specific expertise. What they have in common is that they operate in exploding industries, like mobile applications, that barely existed a few years ago.
More related to this story

As a result, local technology firms and community groups are teaming up to build a regional hub that would benefit every company here by pulling in more people. But companies, individually, are also getting extremely creative with their workplace and hiring practices - building gyms, catering two daily meals, offering unlimited vacation and huge cash incentives - in ways that could hold lessons for others hiring in tight talent markets.

At Kik, a startup with sealed-off software programming "war-rooms," big-screen TVs controlled by iPhones and oversized post-it notes stuck to the wall, Erika Podlovics is trying desperately to calm her five-month-old puppy, Wellington.

Wellington the puppy has accompanied Ms. Podlovics to work. As the 24-year-old CEO, Ted Livingston, looks on, Ms. Podlovics lets the dog, which has been ill lately, out of a cage and hands him a stuffed toy snake.

Bringing a recovering pet to work is just one of the perks of working here. One of the other perks for employees is having two free meals each work day, catered by the upscale bar Wildcraft, which is just across the street. Kik is also putting in a gym, even though it only has 25 employees,

"If you want to compete at the global level, you're going to have to spend the money to build that culture," Mr. Livingston says.

Last year, nearly 300 new companies formed in the region, creating roughly 450 jobs at various startups, according to Communitech, a local group that represents about 800 technology companies in the region. There have also been about 1,000 tech jobs created at medium-to-large tech firms over the last three years, a period that has seen 531 new companies established here. But those companies are now growing, fast, and a "conservative estimate" is that there are roughly 1,300 unfilled tech positions locally, says Communitech's CEO, Iain Klugman. Even RIM, which laid off 11 per cent of its work force, is still hiring.

Mr. Klugman's group has been hitting the road, reaching out to about 20,000 local high school students and encouraging them to study science and engineering. They have also done recruitment events across the country with local companies, as well as on-campus events.

Desire2Learn, a fast-growing e-learning company here that has offices around the world, is giving out around $75,000 in prize money to programmers who develop applications for its platform. John Baker, the firm's president and CEO, also recently gave 140 of his R&D staff an entire week off to work on whatever they wanted to - and then integrated some of what they came up with into the product lineup. In addition to the more-traditional cash prizes and paying people $500 a year not to drive to work, they also have chili cook-offs. Currently, there are about 90 job openings and the company expects to hire 250 people this year.

Lately, Mr. Baker has leveraged the company's mission with potential employees, pulling in those from Google and elsewhere because he says Desire2Learn wasn't simply trying to profit from technology, but had broader aspirational goals for changing society. "We've been able to attract some great talent, like [former RIM chief financial officer] Dennis Kavelman," Mr. Baker says.

At times, it makes more sense to pull in high-quality employees who may not even have the right skills for the job: Ramy Nassar, a former RIM executive who has done hiring for Toronto-based Myplanet Digital, says they have run four-week courses for new employees that cost the company about $1,000 a day. "We'll match any offer from Google or Facebook," Mr. Nassar says.

For a local company but global giant like RIM, the problems are a bit different. Many local programmers say they don't want to work there because of RIM's stuffy work culture, but some go as far as attributing a talent shortage to RIM's aging buildings - bought during big expansions, but largely seen as bland and uninspiring.

For slightly smaller firms in larger cities, like Toronto's Endloop Mobile, the fight for fresh talent can still be immensely frustrating, a sign that the problem is not Waterloo's alone. Kerry Morrison, Endloop's CEO, now stresses their company's "anti-corporation" stance by working out of a house-office, offering unlimited vacation time, stacking the house with breakfast and dinner food, and getting set to offer in-house yoga classes and comprehensive medical coverage - despite the fact that the firm has only six full-time employees. Like others, they are investigating global satellite offices to draw from wider talent pools.

"Finding talent is the No. 1 issue we at Endloop, and every other company I talk to, is facing in 2012 - it's ridiculous right now how hard it is to find people," Mr. Morrison says, who notes he would hire three or four developers tomorrow if he could find any. "Frankly it's the only thing that keeps me up at night."

[Psykopathik]

this will totally change my life and the internet as we know it. Thank you for the news.

[The_AK]

Originally Posted by Manic!

Way overpriced imo. For a billion why couldn't Facebook just make it's own app and market the crap out of it on Facebook.

Brand Equity.