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Once Mocked, Facebook's $1 Billion Acquisition of Instagram Was Genius (bgr.com)
anderzole writes: "In April of 2012, Facebook shocked the tech world when it acquired Instagram for $1 billion," reports BGR. "At the time, the acquisition raised quite a few eyebrows, along with many more questions than answers. Not only did people wonder how Instagram would fit into Facebook's existing business, many also questioned if Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had lost his mind by outlaying $1 billion for a company that, at the time, had no revenue." Nearly five years later, Facebook's Instagram acquisition
"not only looks like a bargain, but a full-fledged stroke of genius."
Today Instagram still shows no signs of slowing down. Instagram's active user base jumped from 500 to 600 million in just the last 6 months alone, marking its fastest growth rate ever. "Incredibly, Facebook saw the long-term potential and impact of Instagram and managed to swoop in and acquire the company long before its user base began to accelerate wildly," writes BGR. "From an economic standpoint, Instagram is already paying dividends via highly targeted and lucrative ads. During the first quarter of 2016, for example, it was estimated that revenue from Instagram checked in at $572.5 million and accounted for 10% of Facebook's overall revenue. In fact, analysts at Credit Suisse believe that Instagram will have delivered $3.2 billion in revenue for Facebook by the time 2016 comes to a close. That's not bad for a $1 billion acquisition that Facebook is still in the relatively early stages of monetizing."
Instagram was also the second-fastest growing app of 2016, increasing its user base by 36% in just 12 months.
Today Instagram still shows no signs of slowing down. Instagram's active user base jumped from 500 to 600 million in just the last 6 months alone, marking its fastest growth rate ever. "Incredibly, Facebook saw the long-term potential and impact of Instagram and managed to swoop in and acquire the company long before its user base began to accelerate wildly," writes BGR. "From an economic standpoint, Instagram is already paying dividends via highly targeted and lucrative ads. During the first quarter of 2016, for example, it was estimated that revenue from Instagram checked in at $572.5 million and accounted for 10% of Facebook's overall revenue. In fact, analysts at Credit Suisse believe that Instagram will have delivered $3.2 billion in revenue for Facebook by the time 2016 comes to a close. That's not bad for a $1 billion acquisition that Facebook is still in the relatively early stages of monetizing."
Instagram was also the second-fastest growing app of 2016, increasing its user base by 36% in just 12 months.
And people thought that the Smalltalk post read like an ad. There's no use for articles only interested in only covering the upsides to a situation.
From 500 to 600 million is a factor of 1.2 million!
Seems more like a "Which was First" type scenario. Would have Instagram have increased its user base if not for Facebook? I doubt it. It’s really less about “genius” and more about what FB can do with 1.2B users.
Even if it was a total flop, a $1 billion flop would still look brilliant compared to Microsoft buying LinkedIn... or Microsoft buying Nokia... or... Microsoft buying aQuantive... or... well, whoever ends up actually buying Yahoo, because even Microsoft learns from their mistakes.
Log in or piss off.
One billion pictures of what people ate for lunch may have information content but is it valuable?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They are offering something of value to their customers. The complaint should be: Remember when businesses considered their users and customers to be the same people?