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Without Facebook, Instagram Valued at $100 Billion
Did Facebook Inc. (FB) purchase Instagram for cheap? Recent valuations say so. A new estimate reveals that if Instagram were a standalone company, it would have been worth $100 billion today, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
The photo-sharing service recently hit 1 billion monthly active users, and the steadily increasing user base is expected to shoot revenue past $10 billion over the next 12 months. While parent company Facebook is reportedly losing younger audiences, its loss has been a boon to Instagram and other social media services including Snap Inc.'s (SNAP) Snapchat, owing to features that better appeal to younger people. (See also: Aging Facebook Losing Teens: Pew Research Survey.)
While Facebook continues to grow and has surpassed the 2.2 billion user milestone, Instagram is gaining new users at a rapid pace and is on course to get 2 billion users on its platform over the next five years, the study suggests. During the past year, Instagram contributed 10.6% to revenues at Facebook, per eMarketer data, while over the next year it is expected to account for around 16% of the parent company's revenue. Instagram's future growth may be accelerated by the recently launched IGTV, an iOS- and Android-supported app-based video hosting and sharing service that will compete head-on with Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) YouTube service.
Also at BGR, The Mercury News, and Business Insider.
Related: Facebook/Instagram vs. Twitch and YouTube
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:16PM (9 children)
Silly question: How dumb of a society are we, that something so useless and easily replaced can be worth so much ?
Yes it connects advertisers to people under the guise of posting pictures, generating revenue, and it connects people. But if it vanished right this instant, what impact would it have on the economy or anybody not working there ? Nada. People would get confused for a second, and start using an alternate right away. How can it be worth so much if so few would care/be impacted at all if it wasn't there?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:19PM (1 child)
You're surrounded by stupid people.
An equal vote by unequal people makes no sense.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @10:19PM
That is a racist statement....Afro-Americans votes are worth as much as other Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:24PM (2 children)
Maybe one day we'll have enough "woke" people that going "mooooo" or "baaaaaah" at someone when they get sucked into a privacy hellhole like FB will actually make them ashamed of their ignorance. They will ask what alternative there is that protects them from the evil marketers and we will quickly populate alternatives that respect freedom and privacy.
Woops I just woke up, I type pretty well when taking a nap!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 29 2018, @12:13AM (1 child)
As far as I'm concerned, Facebook RUINED Instagram, and they ruined its potential to continue to make money.
And they did so just as Instagram had figured out how to monetize its platform in the least intrusive way.
But to your greater point, yes, photo share is something easy to do, and the bigger you scale it, the less valuable it is to the users.
I might be willing to share a few pics with actual friends, but sure not willing to take world plus dog on my road trip, or to Grandads 98th birthday.
Facebook already had photoshare working before Instagram. They didn't NEED Instagram, they FEARED Instagram.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @12:15AM
You might do it if you were a THOT who could monetize it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:30PM
Narcissism is big money.
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
Short answer: Network effect [wikipedia.org].
Longer answer: So long as there are people 'providing' stuff that people want (be it pictures, blog posts, etc.) and there are people who want to consume it, there's going to be a desire by the consumers to track down the new location where the producers post their stuff.
Different answer: As interesting as the details of any given 'product' or 'response' may be, and how much that data can be used to target the participants for showing them advertisements, there is also that pesky metadata to watch out for, too.
Back when the US government was making a big noise that it was not listening in on people's conversations, but only gathering metadata, there was this insightful article posted which I cannot too highly recommend: Using Metadata to find Paul Revere [kieranhealy.org]. it leverages something that many people can understand and presents a straightforward walk-through of how simple it is to glean information from just observing the participants.
I find the article no less instructive and informative than it was when it was written 5 years ago.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @03:12AM
Big GET #700000 NETWORK EFFECT
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @10:35AM
Silly question: How dumb of a society are we, that something so useless and easily replaced can be worth so much ?
Ivanka Trump?