Facebook is not going anywhere thanks to its lucky bet on Instagram – BGR



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The new data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence that rates the Instagram photo sharing application at more than $ 100 billion represents more than a breathtaking growth trajectory for what was once a team of 13 people bought by Facebook in 2012.

This acquisition is arguably the most fortunate bet that Facebook has ever made in its entire existence. What's more, armed with new data on the value of Instagram – with indicators like Instagram recently announcing that it has reached the billion-user – which should appease any uncertainty about the future Dark for Facebook Inc., no matter if the popularity of the blue app and its much-maligned information feed is declining.

At this last point – "Facebook is a social media for the elderly" was not just a Boing Boing title in recent days. It's also a bit popular conventional wisdom at this point. Just look at Pew's "Teens, Social Media & Technology" report, which ranked teenagers' favorite social media apps in 2018 and put Facebook's popularity at a mediocre 51 percent. Below YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.

Facebook, meanwhile, did not get too hooked on all this and raised his own version to avoid being irrelevant thanks to the fact that he wisely picked up Instagram for $ 1 billion. This 100-fold return on investment has of course given him a massive audience, analyst Jitendra Waral estimating in a Bloomberg Intelligence report that Instagram will overtake Facebook itself and will reach 2 million users in the next five years. Waral adds that Instagram should be able to "double traffic at a faster pace because the adoption curve of the platform has exceeded that of Facebook."

Instagram-killer "Stories" from Instagram, as well as the recently released streaming platform from Insta IGTV, also underscore the future of the service. They also help explain why US users of Instagram have spent almost as much time this month in the Android version of the app that Facebook users have spent in their application, according to news. this week's data from SimilarWeb.

Bloomberg Intelligence also cites eMarketer data that shows that Instagram could be responsible for about 16% of Facebook's revenue over the next 12 months.

All of this, you could argue, was probably inevitable. Facebook over the years has talked too much about privacy settings, too steeped in what has become an appalling application interface, has given people so many buttons to turn and tinker on every post that people are raising their hands and start to throw something simpler. There is also a certain degree of irony in the fact that a Snapchat like Snapchat has been trying to take the Goliath of social media, and when Facebook has been the most vulnerable to the Cambridge Analytica and the Google Analytics. Other recent scandals, Snapchat ended up showing Facebook a future where the news thread is no longer as important. And here, not only was Stories born, but Facebook stuffed it into everything he could, like Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.

This is the social media circle of life. A New York Times title from last year probably said it best. "Why Instagram is becoming Facebook's next Facebook."

On reflection, I hope not.

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