Mark Zuckerberg just announced that his social networking giant, Facebook, formally agreed on a plan to acquire photo-sharing network Instagram for $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock. Zuckerberg describes Facebook’s first acquisition of a product with a legion of followers as an exciting opportunity to enhance user’s ability to share photos with their friends and family, especially with the filters, options, and capabilities built-in to the Instagram apps. While there are a lot of similarities across the two brands, Zuckerberg emphasized that his focus is to grow both brands independently, but the opportunity to expand the reach of the Instagram app around the world is where Facebook’s monster presence and infrastructure comes in. While it will be hard to predict how Facebook will handle Instagram’s 30 million users that pay nothing for the service, this business deal certainly makes sense for Facebook. via: TechCrunch
