Facebook has acquired Instagram for $1-bln on Monday, making it the largest purchase by the social network to date. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram, the popular San Francisco-based photo-sharing app, will be able to develop independent of Facebook.
“We believe these are different experiences that compliment 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,” he said. “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.”
The deal is particularly timely as it comes just weeks before the social networks’ highly anticipated IPO.
The last acquisition in the photo-sharing sphere came when Yahoo bought Flickr for $24 million in 2003.
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May Jeong is Toronto Standard’s business editor.
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