It has been announced that Facebook has purchased Instagram for $1 Billion. Instagram was launched in October 2010 as an app which allows you to add filters to your photographs you take on your phone and share them with your friends. The app was only available on iPhones until recently when an Android version was released. Facebook aims to integrate Instagram and Facebook in some way, however are according to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook will be “keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything”.
The app currently has 27 million registered users according to its co-founders, an increase of 12 million since December 2011, this combined with its acquisition by Facebook, shows the importance of the sharing images in social media. Twitter also last year integrated the upload of photos using PhotoBucket, making photos the only media incorporated into Twitter other than text. Until recently sharing images was not so easy, and editing them in some way first was definitely not included. Aided by the use of mobile phones with cameras and wireless connections sharing photographs has become possible. Taking and sharing pictures is a activity people love. They can be taken for no specific purpose other than for capturing a moment, and used to create conversations with friends, provoking topics of discussion, or they can be shot for a specific purpose such as providing some kind of information in a pictorial form.
I'm assuming the combination of Instagram and Facebook will involve filters and effects now being able to added to our Facebook photographs, but I eagerly await the outcome of this integration.
