Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced (via MacRumors) that Facebook will acquire popular photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion. The purchase will be made using a combination of cash and Facebook shares, and the entire Instagram team will become employees of Facebook.
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.
Instagram will remain an independent app, and will be built and grown by members of the original Instagram team, but will also be carefully integrated with other services, and with Facebook’s social network project as a whole. The app will also remain able to share with social networks other than Facebook, as confirmed by Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom.
It’s a pretty huge moment, considering that this is Facebook’s first major acquisition. It will be interesting to see what changes come to the service in the coming weeks. Instagram is available as a free download on the App Store (free, App Store link).
