Facebook To Buy Instagram For $1 Billion 162
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by
Soulskill
from the payday-at-the-instagram-office dept.
from the payday-at-the-instagram-office dept.
Dorduan writes with news that Facebook is buying Instagram, the company who makes the popular mobile photo-sharing app of the same name, for approximately $1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg wrote,
"... in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook. That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people. We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook."
Re:One Billion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One Billion? (Score:5, Insightful)
The application details are a formality. The 30+million users are the product.
Facebook is buying cattle fenced in by another app, and moving it within its world (where Google cannot reach :).
Re:One Billion? (Score:5, Insightful)
1990's and prior - you had to buy and read magazines to get your celeb news
21st century - celebs connect directly to fans via social networks
the owner of the platform that owns this will have a huge opportunity in marketing
look for pinterest to be bought next
Re:Wonder how iPhone idiots will react to this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wonder how iPhone idiots will react to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoiler alert: All the platforms have their idiots.
Business Model (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Build a simple app.
2. Generate a substantial user base.
3. Make facebook feel threatened.
4. Profit!
Re:Wonder how iPhone idiots will react to this? (Score:2, Insightful)
I commonly see Android users who are genuinely offended that Google is releasing their apps for iOS as well. Yet a double standard is applied to iPhone users that they're the snobby ones.
Heck, Android users calling Apple part of a "Apple Cult of Personality" and "idiots" is a little snobby, don't you think?
Re:One Billion? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Business Model (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, are the early 90's back?
1. Build a simple app
2. Generate a substantial user base
3. Make Microsoft feel threatened.
4. Profit.
Re:One Billion? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Social" is a tough game. By the time it's clear that a competing platform is a threat, they'll have their own established brand and overinflated stock price.
Presumably Facebook believe that a large number of their users use their accounts primarily for sharing photos with friends.If some other platform starts serving that need, they'll stop spending time on Facebook, and if the platform reaches critical mass, they'll start "dragging" other users over.
Remember that ad revenues go up as users spend more time on their site. If people are sharing and browsing photos somewhere else, they're spending less time on Facebook, even if they still have an account.
Thus there are two costs: the direct loss of ad revenue as people spend less time on Facebook, and the increased risk of a competitor gaining critical mass as people form networks outside of Facebook. It's safest to cull them while they are buds, but of course the start-ups know that, and demand a hugely inflated price.
Equallity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One Billion? (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, even if everyone knows its a bubble, they will propagate it anyway.