Facebook On Social Media Offensive With Instagram Acquisition
With Facebook's recent announcement of their acquisition of the photo sharing service Instagram, the company is signaling a shift in focus to a more future-oriented mindset as they prepare to go public.
In buying out Instagram, Facebook is reducing competition with their own photo sharing features which could prove beneficial to their over 250 million mobile users. They're also not restricting access of Instagram to strictly Facebook. Dr. Janet Sternberg, a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University who analyzes communication mergers, further elaborates on the positives of bringing Instagram into the Facebook family.
"The Facebook-Instagram merger draws parallels with AOL's corporate behavior in the 1990s by acquiring other instant messaging systems in order to decrease competition with AOL's own Instant Messenger Service. That's exactly what Facebook did with this merger, which will now allow them to improve its own photo sharing capabilities using Instagram technology. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as the old saying goes," says Dr. Sternberg. "The merger also ensures Facebook will gain new connections to other social media systems by not limiting Instagrams to strictly Facebook, which allows them to reach an even wider audience and charge higher rates for advertising."
About Dr. Janet Sternberg: Professor Janet Sternberg, PhD, is a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University who specializes in topics such as legal dilemmas in cyberspace, misbehavior in virtual communities, the history of technology, digital media, social fragmentation and the relationships among communication technologies.
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