Don’t be fooled by reports that Google and Twitter have become “ensnared” in the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram. Both the search giant and microblogging platform are exactly where they want to be. This is the best news for both Google and Twitter with some suggesting that they may have both had their hands in prompting the investigation in the first place. The deal puts the most powerful social network in the world in prime position by having the most used mobile photo-sharing company in the world at its disposal. That’s bad because…

The internet world is still talking about Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of photo sharing service Instagram, which marked the biggest acquisition in its eight year history. This deal surely resulted in a nice payday for the people behind Instagram, but why Facebook? Why not other players in the social space, namely Twitter or Google+? Well, Twitter expressed that it wanted to buy the service, but decided to pass. Google flat out said it wasn’t interested – sure. All that aside, Facebook and Instagram is just a better fit. Here’s why:   The user experience People are infatuated with…

Hope can be a great thing. False hope can destroy lives. Such is the case with what an esteemed colleague wrote on Fast Company about how startups should build the next Tabasco rather than shoot for the next Instagram. The idea is simple: build something that will last. Don’t shoot for the quick cash. Buyout should be an option, not a goal. Ideal world this, utopian society that. The reality of today’s ultra-competitive startup world is that the quick in, quicker out companies like Instagram are the only examples that startups should be following. While it’s nice to believe that companies have an…

As startup success stories go, few can compare to Instagram. When they were purchased by Facebook earlier this week, there weren’t many people crying the standard conviction of “they sold too early!” At $1 billion, most agree that they hit their peak and sold off at just the right moment. This timeline from Visual.ly breaks down the course that brought them from small startup with a clever concept for photo sharing to a company that has made its 13 employees rich and ready for more adventures with Facebook. Click to enlarge. From: Los Angeles Honda Via: Visual.ly H/T: Automotive SEO…

There are already questions surrounding Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for $1 billion yesterday. Was it a talent purchase (of 13 employees)? Is it the peak of social media purchases before the bubble starts bursting? Is Facebook only interested in companies with zero revenue? Is this a play against Google+? Twitter? There’s one question that was clearly answered: “How do you build a billion dollar company in 17 months?” In this Instagram Infographic, Visual.ly takes us down the path that started in March, 2010, when Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger raised $500,000 in seed funding for burbn,…

It’s a sign of the times. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook has purchased photo app Instagram for $1 billion. The 13-person team at Instagram has not been able to generate revenue but was able to build a strong base of 30 million users. Facebook has done poorly at developing their own mobile technology with the Facebook iPad app having not been released until after the iPad 2. Here’s the report from the Wall Street Journal: …

With Apple’s App Store and the Android Market now literally filled with hundreds of thousands of apps, it’s getting increasingly hard for apps to stand out. And yet, every once in a while, an app will break out to become quite successful – at which point, we all start to wonder what’s so special about this particular new application and how others might replicate its popularity. Something of that sort is now happening with new and rapidly rising photo app Instagram, a photo sharing app that adds a retro style to the pics you take. It’s getting popular fast – it’s only been around for about a month and…