Instasuccess? What Instagram Brings to Facebook

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(Is a Picture worth a $1,000,000,000? Facebook Thinks So!)

Photo Curtsey of http://instagr.am/

A week ago today, Facebook brokered a deal to buy Instagram, a 2-year-old company comprised of 13 employees, for a whopping $1 Billion in cash and stock options. With no revenue model and still in the start-up stage, why would Facebook drop a cool $1 Billion to purchase Instagram? Great question! Lets take a look at what made Instagram an Instasuccess!

Instagram is a stand-alone mobile application that allows its users to capture photos, apply unique filters, and instantly share them with their friends. By having an easy to understand user interface, focused solely on photo sharing, Instagram was able to capture over 30 million users just on its IOS platform alone. To go along with the news of Facebook purchasing Instagram, they also released an android version that saw over 5 million downloads in it’s first few days. That’s over 30 million new subscribers that Facebook can add to its already impressive 800 million.

The Age of the Smartphone Camera

What made Instagram such a success was it’s ability to take advantage of the new Smartphone Camera technology that has been released by both Apple and Google in their new Smartphone’s. What is this new technology you ask? It’s simply the combination of a camera and editing software to create an all in one package that allows users to snap photos, process and edit them in real-time, right on the camera. This new technology will be sure to take over the digital camera market in no time unless they get software integrated right onto digital cameras fast. But who wants to carry a phone and a camera when you can have the best of both worlds in one device!?

What Does Instagram Bring to the Table for Facebook?

So, why does Facebook want a piece of the pie? Well for starters before Instagram was around, Facebook was the number one way to share photos with your friends.  Now that Facebook owns Instagram, it will allow users to add all kinds of unique filters to their Facebook photos, providing for the best overall photo sharing experience on the web. “One of the main reasons people love Facebook,” according to its CEO Mark Zuckerbereg.

DATA, DATA, and More DATA

Another thing that Instagram brings to the table is the data it has on its users. It has a much better idea of what users like and what they are doing. Most people take photos of the things they like or of the things they like to do. For example, a foodie will be taking lots of pictures of food, With this data, Facebook can sell more targeted ads and media. This data is worth most of the billion dollars that they spent to acquire it. Look for more ads tailored toward your interests and likes to appear on both your Facebook and Instagram profiles.

More Mobile Please!

What makes Instagram even more valuable is the fact that it is a stand-alone mobile app. With Facebook’s mobile App always being scrutinized for its perpetual bugs, slowness and downtime, Facebook needed to make a move with its impending IPO next month, to make sure it still has its hand strategically placed in the mo. With the news of the release of an Android version, Facebook knew it had to move fast in order to acquire a potential competitor before it’s biggest competitor Google did. Word on the street is that Google was very much interested in acquiring the young start up as well.

Conclusion

As for now, there haven’t been any changes made, but look for things to start changing once Facebook really gets behind the wheel. I’m curious to see just what Facebook has in store for its new acquired subsidiary. I assume more ads will be coming our way along with more Facebook integration through the app. I just hope that Facebook doesn’t ruin the purity of Instagram, although it already seems like that might happen with everyone flocking over to it left and right!