Facebook has announced it is to buy Instagram, the popular photo-sharing smartphone app, for $1bn in cash and stock.
Instagram, which only launched in October 2010, began as an application just for the iPhone before being offered as an Android app last week. Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to continue to develop Instagram as a separate brand, allowing it to post to rival networks.
Instagram is a free app which allows users to apply 17 filters to the pictures they take and has proven hugely popular. According to Instagram, more than 30 million users upload over 5 million new pictures every day.