Facebook needs Instagram to stay king: analysts

[McLovin]

Facebook wasn't trying to net and monetise a large user base with its Instagram buy, according to analysts, but rather was making a strategic acquisition to keep competitors at bay and ensure that it remains at the heart of social media.

Facebook paid US$1 billion to secure the photo-sharing app, making many in the industry look twice, since the app has only been around for a relatively short time, and has an employee count of less than 20, despite its 30 million users.

Link: Read more.

 

[Ink]

Facebook is becoming worse than Google.

I read that users are getting rid of Instagram, now that Facebook bought them out.

 

[jamescv7]

Well I just so this news earlier from Facebook actually Instagram is perhaps one to be commonly used from Twitter when posting photos. So what can you say Facebook was no.1 social networking sites so the shares isn't a problem.

 

[Ink]

Massive thumbs down for letting FB buy them.

 

[Hungry Man]

Massive thumbs down for letting FB buy them.

Oh?

You wouldn't have sold your just-started company for a billion dollars?

That's more than they ever dreamed of making, I'm sure. Even split among 20 people it's nearly as big as winning the lottery.

I don't blame them. I would have done the same thing.

 

[Ink]

I don't even think Instagram is worth $1B, looks more like a bribe to snatch that company and whatever evil plans they have.

 

[Jack]

Surely this transaction did a lot more waves then the Microsoft-AOL did

Jon Stewart On Facebook's Billion Dollar Instagram Purchase: 'Really Lame'

Daily Show host Jon Stewart is unimpressed with news that Facebook paid $1 billion for the mobile app, Instagram.

After being told that Instagram is a mobile app that makes your photos look like Polaroids, Stewart remarked, “A billion dollars of money? For a thing that kind of ruins your pictures?”

Daily Show “senior youth correspondent” Jessica Williams had Facebook’s back, however, telling Stewart that the acquisition makes perfect sense, because Instagram is “awesome.”

“Before Instagram, if I wanted my pictures to look like they were taken in the ‘60s, I’d have to invent a time machine and travel back 50 years,” Williams said. “You know how much a time machine would cost to build?”

Easily a billion dollars, and the whole risk of screwing up the space-time continuum, Williams added.


The move certainly is perplexing, though perhaps not quite so much when viewed through the Pinterest lens. Facebook is worried about any potential hemorrhaging as the new, but instantly successful, social media start-up has begun to nip at its heels.

Read more:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/11/jon-stewart-on-facebooks-billion-dollar-instagram-purchase-really-lame/

 

[jamescv7]

Well similarly a user commented from Facebook about that discussion through group and stated: "if they can bought 1 billion dollars for instagram then why not for the homeless like in Africa?"