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| Instagram’s chief executive, Kevin Systrom. |
Facebook is about to drop $1 billion to buy mobile photo editing start up Instagram, but why? Instagram has no revenue, about a dozen employees and is not even two years old. So where does Facebook see the value of $1 billion? Wait. The value is in the users of course!
Instagram is essentially a social network built around photography, offering mobile apps that let people add quirky effects to their smartphone snapshots and share them with friends. It has dozens of competitors, but Instagram stands out for its fast ascension and almost cultlike following. It has 30 million users who upload more than five million photos a day, even though it was available for only Apple devices until last week, when the company released an Android app.[NYT]
