Facebook is dumping a whopping $1 billion for Instagram, a company that is less than two years old and has no revenue. With today's smart phones capable of taking pictures similar to the quality of those your standard point-and-shoot cameras take, Instagram has taken advantage of that technology and its popularity has skyrocketed. The photo sharing app is installed in over 30 million phones and, until recently, was only available in the iOS app store. While this number pales in comparison to Facebook's 850 million users, the simplicity and elegance of Instagram is making it one of the most popular services to share pictures with friends and family. In the Facebook iPhone app, it takes six screens before you can take a picture to upload. With Instagram, it only takes one.
The acquisition addresses what Facebook iterated in its S-1: Photo sharing is an essential part of its strategy. Facebook allows users to share with others what's happening around them. With Instagram, Facebook hopes to enhance people's stories and increase user-engagement. Though Facebook users upload over 250 million photos a day, when people think of smartphone photos, they think Instagram -- not Facebook.
Here are the numbers behind Facebook's massive buy (click 'Next' below to see the data):
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