<story><title>Facebook acquires Instagram</title><url>https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100318398827991</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homosaur</author><text>YouTube is a content paradise though. There&apos;s tons of value there and you can sell ads against it or even charge for premium services.&lt;p&gt;Where&apos;s the money in Instagram? The content is practically worthless and their only real value is in their userbase. Even though I use the Instagram client, most of the time I see photos, they come through Twitter. So that also reinforces for me that any value is in the users and not the actual content, which is mostly crap.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m more convinced that we&apos;re in a 2nd bubble now more than ever.</text></item><item><author>inmygarage</author><text>This is very reminiscent of Google/YouTube circa 2006. When Google bought YT it was a small team of people and a pretty nascent product that people really loved, and the usage numbers were out of control. They left the product mostly untouched and let it grow on its own. Though there was major criticism at the time, it is one of the best tech acquisitions of the past decade.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acgourley</author><text>I doubt you, or anyone else, was saying that then youtube was purchased. It merely looked popular.&lt;p&gt;It turns out what Google was buying was a chance to maintain their lead in how people were going to use their computers.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is now buying a chance to maintain their lead with how people are going to use their phones.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook acquires Instagram</title><url>https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100318398827991</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homosaur</author><text>YouTube is a content paradise though. There&apos;s tons of value there and you can sell ads against it or even charge for premium services.&lt;p&gt;Where&apos;s the money in Instagram? The content is practically worthless and their only real value is in their userbase. Even though I use the Instagram client, most of the time I see photos, they come through Twitter. So that also reinforces for me that any value is in the users and not the actual content, which is mostly crap.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m more convinced that we&apos;re in a 2nd bubble now more than ever.</text></item><item><author>inmygarage</author><text>This is very reminiscent of Google/YouTube circa 2006. When Google bought YT it was a small team of people and a pretty nascent product that people really loved, and the usage numbers were out of control. They left the product mostly untouched and let it grow on its own. Though there was major criticism at the time, it is one of the best tech acquisitions of the past decade.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xutopia</author><text>Social sites like Facebook are mostly about photo sharing. This acquisition is all about controlling the main reason people use a social site like FB (or one that competes for it).</text></comment>