Facebook to Buy Instagram for $1 Billion ⇥

Thomas Houston:

Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook today to announce that Facebook has agreed to acquire photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion in “a combination of cash and shares of Facebook.” The entire Instagram team — 6 employees — will be joining Facebook, and interestingly, Zuckerberg says that Instagram will be built and grown “independently” and that its integration with other services is an “important part of the experience.”

Big, slightly alarming news. I love Instagram, and I don’t hate Facebook nearly to the extent that detractors seem to. But I can’t see how the sterility of the latter will integrate with Instagram.

Neven Mrgan explained on Twitter:

Instagram is the first Facebook acquisition of a popular product. Really interested to see how they’ll integrate it into FB.

There was Gowalla, which was a) already riding off into the sunset, b) stitched into Facebook invisibly; the product disappeared.

Absolutely. I’m not sure Facebook understands how important it is to preserve the Instagram experience.

My other theory is that Facebook desperately wants to acquire Tim Van Damme.