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When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012, fans of the photo sharing startup worried about what would happen to their beloved application under the wings of the social media giant .
None of their worst fears have materialized. But now that its founders have announced that they are leaving in a whirlwind of wishes and vague explanations, some of the same worries are coming up again – and more. Will Instagram disappear? Be cluttered with ads and status updates? Sucked out of personal data for advertising as her parents do? Losing his cool?
The worst: will it become another Facebook?
"It's probably a bigger challenge (for Facebook) than most people realize," said Omar Akhtar, an analyst at Altimeter. "Instagram is the only platform that is growing, and many people do not necessarily make the connection between Instagram and Facebook."
Instagram had only 31 million users when Facebook won for $ 1 billion; now he has a billion. There were no ads at the time; It now includes both display ads and video ads, although they are still limited compared to Facebook. But that could change quickly. Facebook's growth has started to slow down and Wall Street has pushed the company to find new ways to increase its revenue.
Instagram has been at the center of these efforts.
Facebook has raised the profile of Instagram in its financial discussions. In July, it unveiled a new metric for analysts, arguing that 2.5 billion people use at least one of its applications – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger – each month. While not particularly revealing, the measure underscores the growing importance that Facebook attaches to these secondary applications.
Facebook does not reveal the amount reported by Instagram, although Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates it will reach about $ 6 billion this year, just over 10% of Facebook's revenue, estimated at $ 55.7 billion.
Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has long seen the promise of Instagram. At the time, it was by far the biggest acquisition of Facebook (although it was overshadowed by the $ 19 billion Zuckerberg paid for WhatsApp two years later). And it was the first start allowed to operate mainly independently.
It paid a lot of time. Not only did Instagram reach 1 billion users faster than its parent company, but it also managed to clone Snapchat's popular "Stories" feature, bringing a serious blow to this social network that has repeatedly failed. Instagram has also launched a long-running video feature to challenge YouTube, another big Facebook rival.
Recently, Instagram has had the wind in its sails. In June, Systrom went to New York to inaugurate its new office, featuring an ice bar and planning to hire hundreds of engineers. A month earlier, Instagram had moved to new offices in San Francisco. During a conference call in July, Zuckerberg said that Instagram's success depended on his integration with Facebook, saying he was using a parent company's infrastructure to grow "more than twice faster than if it were growing alone ".
But Instagram has also been a case study of how to run an affiliate independently – especially when her parents are involved in user privacy issues and concerns about voter interference, misinformation and misinformation. And especially when her parents have long since stopped being cool, with everyone and their grandmother.
The simple design of Instagram – just a collection of photos and videos of sunsets, distant vacations, intimate breakfasts and close-ups of baby – allowed him to stay a favorite long after being integrated into Facebook. If people go on Twitter to make fun of the news and Facebook to see what old classmates are doing, Instagram is where they will relax, scroll down and feast their eyes.
So, will it change?
"I do not think Zuckerberg is stupid," said Akhtar. "He knows that much of Instagram's popularity is separate from Facebook."
As such, he thinks Facebook would be wise to reassure users that what they love about Instagram will not change – that they will not be forced to integrate Facebook. "It will go far," he said.
Internally, the challenge is a bit more complicated. Although Systrom and Krieger did not explain why they were leaving, their decision echoes the recent departure of WhatsApp co-founder and CEO, Jan Koum, who resigned in April. Koum had pointed out years earlier that he would take a stance if Facebook's efforts to increase profits were likely to compromise fundamentals of the WhatsApp messaging service, such as its attachment to user privacy. When Facebook began redoubling its efforts to increase revenue and integrate more with WhatsApp, Koum pulled the strings.
A sign that further integration could be in the future of Instagram: in May, Zuckerberg sent Facebook's longtime executive, Adam Mosseri, to handle the running of the Instagram product. Mosseri replaced long-time Instagram developer Kevin Weil, who was taken back to Facebook.
Akhtar and other analysts said he was probably not in favor of Instagram's founders. Now that they are gone too, Mosseri is the most obvious candidate for running Instagram.
"Kevin Systrom's loyalists will probably leave," Akhtar said.
This means that Facebook will soon have a new challenge: find out how to continue to grow on Instagram if it loses its cool.
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