breaking Breaking: Facebook to Acquire Instagram for $1 Billion

[#Michael]

The android FB apps are absolutely appalling, they take forever todo anything, on my S1 writing on someone's wall is a task and a half as the page keeps on scrolling at every key touch, that's after you've waited 20minutes for the page to load.

Not starting anything...but whose fault is that? The authors of the FB apps or Android itself? It could be that the FB authors don't like the platform and aren't putting in much of an effort to make it a good product...just saying what is blattling the obvious.

[Farstrider]

Ridiculous.

Completely agree, couldn't have said it any better!

[Twisp]

If they work fine for you, you're the rarity. They don't work fine for ANYONE I know, Android and iPhone alike. News feed takes forever to load, photos take forever to load (if they do load at all), everything is slow as dirt, and does bounce around a lot like Z3LCIAH mentioned.

Restarted my phone and measured how long some stuff took.

Feed loads in 4 seconds.

Photos 2-3 seconds.

Profiles with timeline 5-10 seconds.

No lagg and posting to a friends wall wasn't very troublesome... at all.

Fast enough for me and i'm quite impatient. =D

[#Michael]

1 Billion? LOL

Why not a 10 or 100 Million? I mean seriously! 1 Billion?

Goes to show how much money they have on hand and can spend. Look how much MS spent today on AOL's patents. That just cost them $1B also. Tech companies right now have a lot of money burning holes in their pockets and they are willing to spend it.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Goes to show how much money they have on hand and can spend. Look how much MS spent today on AOL's patents. That just cost them $1B also. Tech companies right now have a lot of money burning holes in their pockets and they are willing to spend it.

But why not offer them 100 Million then buy 10 separate companies for 100 Million each!

[Mr. Gibs]

Goes to show how much money they have on hand and can spend. Look how much MS spent today on AOL's patents. That just cost them $1B also. Tech companies right now have a lot of money burning holes in their pockets and they are willing to spend it.

Eh they got 800 patents from it, something they can later use to earn more money or save on licensing costs. Instagram is just an app for something every smartphone camera already has in its settings.

[Zain Adeel]

1bn is toooooooo much !! but they have a lot of money. So... nothing so hard to believe. Actually there was a possibility way back when it got really popular.

[#Michael]

But why not offer them 100 Million then buy 10 separate companies for 100 Million each!

I highly doubt that MZ just woke up this morning and decided to throw $1B at instagram to buy them. Don't you think there was teams of lawyers who determined the value of the company? This wasn't some spur of the moment decision....this had to have been in the works for some time. They spent that money because that is what the lawyers put as the long term value of the company.

[#Michael]

Eh they got 800 patents from it, something they can later use to earn more money or save on licensing costs. Instagram is just an app for something every smartphone camera already has in its settings.

That just goes to show how much and yet how little has changed. Those patents can be said in the same light. AOL is what...15-20 years old at the max? Did anyone actually think that AOL or AIM would make it this long? That patent buyout was nothing more than to keep AOL afloat for a bit longer.

[AJerman]

Restarted my phone and measured how long some stuff took.

Feed loads in 4 seconds.

Photos 2-3 seconds.

Profiles with timeline 5-10 seconds.

No lagg and posting to a friends wall wasn't very troublesome... at all.

Fast enough for me and i'm quite impatient. =D

That's good, and of course, when I try it right now it seems to be working fine. I think it depends a lot on network traffic somewhere, but I can't even tell you the number of times I've tried to open a picture and no matter how many times I clicked it, waited, clicked back, clicked it again, etc, it would NEVER open. Then I could find a different pic, click it, and it would open no problem. Go back to the original, still no go. It's not an occasional bug, it's something I full expect to happen half the time I use the app. I feel very lucky when it works with no problems at all. And I have a phone a (slight) step above yours (Infuse). I hear the same complaints from iPhone users, so maybe their servers are more to blame than their apps. Whatever it is, I don't like the app, and the mobile site is pretty much as bad, plus it's quirks for being a web app. Either way, they are still far from Instagram status as an incredibly functional and fun to use app.

[oceanmotion]

1 Billion? LOL

Why not a 10 or 100 Million? I mean seriously! 1 Billion?

Facebook might not have been the only company looking to aquire them.

How does the company make money ?

If changes are going to happen, it will be finding a profit stream.

[Noxa12]

Not starting anything...but whose fault is that? The authors of the FB apps or Android itself? It could be that the FB authors don't like the platform and aren't putting in much of an effort to make it a good product...just saying what is blattling the obvious.

Oh by all means that could be the issue, but i can only speak about what i've experienced myself, and not knowing what the android platform is like for development i can just assume. Many other apps work fine so it's easy to point the finger. Hey it could just be my phone messing up and others android apps could be working smoothly.

[(Spork)]

If they work fine for you, you're the rarity. They don't work fine for ANYONE I know, Android and iPhone alike. News feed takes forever to load, photos take forever to load (if they do load at all), everything is slow as dirt, and does bounce around a lot like Z3LCIAH mentioned.

facebook app works fine for me on ios and android /shrug

[Rappy Veteran]

*lowely blackberry user*

our facebook app is not very good but we never got instagram so :(

[CronicHazel]

*lowely blackberry user*

our facebook app is not very good but we never got instagram so :(

aww :( u need a hug *hugs*

don't worry, WP7 doesn't have an official instagram client either, haha

[Rappy Veteran]

aww :( u need a hug *hugs*

don't worry, WP7 doesn't have an official instagram client either, haha

haha we don't need one someone created one which isn't that bad really

[Elliott]

Wow. :o Well, the Instagram team made off like fat cats. :p

[Slammers]

So sick of douche bags bagging instagram because "theres already hundreds of apps with filters" or "its just to make photos look trendy".

Instagram is a social network, the filters are just something on the side some people choose to use.

Look at facebook, pretty average setup, but if your going to use a social network to connect with friends, its pretty much has to be facebook. Why? Because it's the only one that actually has all your friends on it. Same goes for instagram. I love seeing all the photos my friends overseas post. I could use a different app, but what would be the point, i'd be sharing my photos with nobody.

[threetonesun]

Facebook bought Instagram for its users. Don't be surprised if they buy Pinterest soon as well. Basically, if they can shore up all the up and coming social networks that are direct competitors to their users time now, their IPO will be stronger.

So, is Instagram worth a billion dollars? No. Are their users worth a billion dollars? No. Is investor confidence that there isn't another market out there stealing Facebook's picture posting market worth a billion dollars? Probably

[Growled Member]

Facebook bought Instagram for its users. Don't be surprised if they buy Pinterest soon as well. Basically, if they can shore up all the up and coming social networks that are direct competitors to their users time now, their IPO will be stronger.

I've read that Facebook has 854 million users and Instagram has 33 million users. Most experts don't see where this purchase makes any sense and neither do I.

[threetonesun]

I've read that Facebook has 854 million users and Instagram has 33 million users. Most experts don't see where this purchase makes any sense and neither do I.

The numbers don't matter, what's important is how engaged the users are. 800 million people might like pictures of cats, but if 30 million are posting the pictures of cats, the 30 million are much more important, simply because they keep the other 800 million more engaged.