The photo sharing application has been something of a sensation and FaceBook was quick to realize the potential associated with Instagram. Now they have bought it for $1bn in one of the biggest deals of its kind. However the Instagram program will run independently. Nevertheless the technologically savvy know that at some point the social networking website is going to try and bring together two of its biggest assets for the purpose of expanding their client base. Although they are feigning innocence, many users are away that there is a growing trend of gathering data about social media users.

The future of communication and online friendships

The acquisition took a lot of money but FaceBook will be hoping that the returns will be sufficient to justify the interest. The main elements of Instagram are related to the fact that it allows people to apply filters to certain images which they take using their mobile devices. They can then share them with friends and strangers. Some filters can do some amazing things with original image. For example some of them appear to have been taken by a Polaroid camera which was a relic of the 1970s. As you can see, the options for developing this partnership are virtually limitless.

Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO for the social networking website and he describes some of the issues at hand: “This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users”. That means that they are looking at both the possibilities of the technology and the client base that they could exploit at some point in the future. Instagram had about 10 employees and now the social networking website is going to take them on. At the moment they have no plans for doing something on that scale again.