A picture’s worth much more than a thousand words to Facebook. Last April — a year ago today, in fact — the social media giant agreed to buy the quickly growing photo-sharing social network Instagram for a cool $1 billion (the final price, a mixture of cash and stock, was $715 million because Facebook shares tumbled before the deal was finalized). The sky-high purchase price, well above Instagram’s $500 million valuation at the time, led some to wonder if Facebook was helping to fuel another tech bubble. A year later, the jury’s still out on whether Instagram will one day reap huge profits, but the company is laying groundwork to put the monetization machine in motion.
By many metrics, Instagram has had an impressive year under Facebook. The photo-sharing network had about 30 million users at the time of the buyout. Today there are more than 100 million monthly active users posting more than 40 million photos per day. The company has doubled its staff to more than 25 employees, including a newbusiness operations director brought over from Facebook.
Despite the large growth numbers, it’s difficult to say whether Instagram has earned its price tag.
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