Facebook buys Instagram for $1billion

Popular photo sharing software company Instagram, has been bought by Facebook for $1 billion Mark Zuckerberg announced today.

Instagram has become increasing popular since its release just a few years ago and allows users to alter and post images on their smartphones and tablets which can be shared with their friends or network. Used by over 30 million people the app gained support from celebrities and became a rival for Facebook.

Zuckerberg will pay the $1 Billion in cash and stock, making the two 26 year old founders, Kevin Systrom and  and Mike Krieger very rich men.

The deal comes just days after the service began offering a version for Android phones in addition to its popular Apple app.

Facebook has been known to buy small start ups and shut them down soon after. Facebook have said today they will continue to run instagram independently.

Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the deal on Monday.

He wrote on his own Facebook account: ‘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.

‘We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But 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.

‘These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products.

‘At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.

‘This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all.