Per la Polaroid è un bel contrappasso: mentre la società fotografica che ha inventato uno stile sta sostanzialmente fallendo, Instagram, una start up californiana con appena 15 mesi di vita che permette di condividere attraverso smartphone e tablet immagini con un design vintage copiato dalla Polaroid sta per essere acquistata per
un miliardo di dollari in contanti e azioni da Facebook. Instagram è in sostanza un social network per le fotografie catturate intorno a noi con iPhone, iPad e, solo da pochi giorni, anche con prodotti che girano con il sistema operativo Android di Google.
Instant-foto geolocalizzate al posto dei 140 caratteri di Twitter. Per alcuni più banale, per altri molto più creativo: è l'eterno scontro tra parola scritta e immagini. In Italia è poco noto ma, fondato alla fine del 2010 da due laureati di Stanford, Mike Krieger e Kevin Systrom, il servizio gratuito ha già conquistato circa 30 milioni di utenti, salendo nella top ten dei social network a più veloce crescita.
È stata l'applicazione dell'anno Apple per il 2011. Pensando alla Polaroid le metafore sulla fine dell'era analogica e l'arrivo dirompente della rivoluzione digitale si sprecano. Ma l'operazione annunciata ieri sui loro blog dal fondatore di Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, e dal chief executive di Instagram, Systrom (un ex Googler), si presta anche ad altre considerazioni.
1)
Come può una società con 13 dipendenti compresi i fondatori - non è un refuso - e 15 mesi di non-storia valere un miliardo peraltro in tempo di crisi? Instagram non ha un modello di business e ha un fatturato ridicolo. Eppure i valori su cui vengono valutate queste start up sono altri, nascosti tra i flussi dei clic e non direttamente monetizzabili.
In 15 mesi su Instagram sono state caricate un miliardo di fotografie. Facebook paga un dollaro a immagine. O, calcolo ancora più bizzarro, 76,9 milioni a dipendente. Ma ciò che interessa a Zuckerberg è che le 5 milioni di foto caricate ogni giorno producono 575 «like» e 81 commenti al secondo su Facebook. È una guerra di traffico e flussi. E chi ne controlla di più vince.
2)
Facebook, oltre ai clic come pensa di rientrare del miliardo, visto che ha dichiarato di voler lasciare Instagram libera di interagire con gli altri social network come Twitter e Tumblr? Zuckerberg è a un passo dalla più ricca quotazione high tech della storia Usa: le attese di Ipo da 10 miliardi per il 10% valorizzano FB a 100 miliardi. E manca solo un mese. In un colpo solo Facebook ingloba un possibile futuro competitor e inietta adrenalina nelle attese del mercato sul settore.
Ma Instagram era stata valutata solo 25 milioni di dollari un anno fa quando ne aveva raccolti 7 da Benchmark Capital.
E
in marzo aveva lasciato tutti perplessi arrivando a una valorizzazione da mezzo miliardo dopo l'ingresso nel capitale di Sequoia Capital. In un mese Facebook, che fino ad oggi aveva concluso solo piccole operazioni e ha annunciato di voler chiudere con Instagram entro giugno, ha aggiunto come fossero nocciolne un altro mezzo miliardo. E dunque rimane la domanda più importante, quella finale.
3) Siamo di fronte a una nuova bolla tecnologica? Ieri, a caldo, se lo è chiesto anche il Wall Street Journal, non certo un giornale avverso alla finanza.
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Smile, you're a multimillionaire.
In October 2010, Stanford University graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched a new iPhone application, Instagram, yet another oddly named tech start-up in a crowded field of hopefuls.
On Monday, the two twenty-somethings said they sold their photo-sharing service—which has about a dozen employees and no revenue—to Facebook Inc. for $1 billion in cash and stock.
That 18-month journey underscores the frenzied state of the tech investing game, where even the smallest Web companies can develop global followings in a matter of weeks.
Only last week, Instagram closed a $50 million funding round from venture capital firms. The company's valuation: A whopping $500 million.
Incredibly, such a number would turn out to be paltry in the days ahead. Shortly after that deal, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg contacted Mr. Systrom, Instagram's 28-year-old CEO, to buy the company.
Mr. Systrom came up with the idea for Instagram and is the company's largest shareholder with about a 45% stake, said people familiar with the matter.
The two had spoken about a deal the previous summer, according to other people familiar with the matter.
The acquisition came together over the weekend. "It was all Mark," said Steve Anderson, a founding partner of Baseline Ventures, one of the company's early investors. "It was CEO to CEO."
Buying Instagram improves Facebook's mobile offerings while removing a rival for users' attention. Instagram, with more than 30 million registered users, grew rapidly by helping people share photos, a fundamental reason people use Facebook.
The deal is the largest ever for Facebook, which people familiar with the matter say will sell shares to the public in May. The company in the past has paid millions of dollars for a series of small ventures, primarily in an effort to acquire talent.
Mr. Zuckerberg called the deal a "milestone" for his company. But, he said, "We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all."
Instagram is one of a cohort of young start-ups that have built products around the iPhone and have registered incredibly fast growth in a short period of time. The company bills its service as a fun and quirky way to share photos with friends. A user can snap a photo with an iPhone, then choose a filter to transform the look of the shot, say by giving it the look of an old Polaroid.
Users can share the photos with followers, where they can post comments and "Like" recommendations. Some people describe the app as a visual version of Twitter, where it is heavily used to share photos.
On March 11, Mr. Systrom gave a keynote talk at the South by Southwest conference in Austin and announced that Instagram's count of registered users had nearly doubled since December, rising to 27 million from 15 million. Last week, the company launched a version of its application that works on smartphones running Google Inc.'s GOOG +0.34% Android system and instantly added millions of users.
All this growth hasn't yet translated to revenue. But in the lingua franca of today's social-media industry that doesn't matter as much as user engagement and the ability to access those users' personal data.
Facebook has about 845 million users, many of whom came to the service to share photos. The company has been falling behind in mobile and has let Instagram capture much of the buzz in photo sharing. The company has rarely changed its photo feature, even as newer companies built more sophisticated apps.
Photos are a key driver of user "engagement," or how long someone spends on Facebook.
Users spend an average of 7.5 hours a month on the site, according to research firm ComScore, the highest of any social network.
Those numbers matter to Facebook's marketers, who want users to view advertisements and interact with brands on the site. Advertising accounts for 85% of Facebook's revenue, or $3.1 billion in 2011, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier, according to the company's regulatory filings.
But the company has to capitalize on mobile. It only begun in February to sell limited advertising on its mobile site, despite the fact that about half of its membership uses Facebook on their mobile phones.
Instagram has yet to develop a model for generating revenue, and substantial obstacles remain, such as whether small smartphone screens are sufficient to draw advertisers' attention.
Ann Taylor owner Ann Inc., ANN -2.04% Urban Outfitters Inc. URBN -1.83% and fashion label Marc Jacobs have created accounts and use Instagram to promote their brands. The app is also popular with celebrities and politicians who have created accounts, including singer Justin Bieber, President Barack Obama, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and rapper Snoop Dogg. Last year, Apple AAPL +0.66% named Instagram the iPhone app of the year.
The Instagram deal harkens back to Google's $1.6 billion acquisition of video-sharing site YouTube in 2006. At the time, analysts questioned the hefty price tag. But the deal instantly made Google a leader in Internet video and allowed it to expand its advertising to new formats.
In early 2011, Instagram raised $7 million in venture capital from Benchmark Capital, Baseline Ventures, Lowercase Capital and a handful of early-stage investors in a round that valued the company at about $30 million, said people familiar with the matter.
The new company almost immediately drew interest from suitors.
Twitter reached out to the company to express interest in buying it in 2011, people familiar with the matter said. Last summer, Mr. Systrom took a meeting with Mr. Zuckerberg, who floated the idea of a sale to Facebook, the people said.
Messrs. Systrom and Kreiger rebuffed all of the offers and seemed intent on building an independent company, said people familiar with their thinking.
Mr. Zuckerberg convinced Mr. Systrom that Instragram would be stronger under the Facebook umbrella than operating as an independent player.
He told Mr. Systrom that Instragram would function as an independent company under Facebook—a promise that Mr. Zuckerberg had never made to any other acquisition targets.
—Emily Glazer contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of a photo caption in this article incorrectly reversed the identifications of Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. Mr. Krieger is on the left and Mr. Systrom is the right.
Write to Shayndi Raice at shayndi.raice@wsj.com and Spencer E. Ante at spencer.ante@wsj.com
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