Facebook assures Instagram users they won't see the company disappear, with their recent announcement that it will acquire the popular mobile photo-sharing service, for $1B in cash and shares. Photos are critically important for Facebook, which has been slow to innovate in the fast-growing mobile arena in the important consumer space, and by contrast, Instagram has taken the arena by storm.
Consumers have responded. Instagram, the San Francisco-based company with only 13 employees, had 30 million Apple iPhone users before it came to Google’s Android last week, where it got more than a million new users in just 12 hours. Despite its popularity, Instagram had not articulated a plan for making money-that will presumably be Facebook’s problem to solve.
