Facebook’s Instagram Reaches 100M Monthly Active Users

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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) investors were nervous about the company’s future when it splashed out $1 billion on Instagram just before its IPO last year. Skeptics are unlikely to be swayed, but today’s news that the photo sharing service has reached 100 million active users every month is definitely positive news.

Facebook's Instagram Reaches 100M Monthly Active Users

Just one month ago, Instagram announced that it had 90 million active users every month. The increase to 100 million, representing a rise of ten million in just one month, is a prestigious rise, reflecting the popularity of the site. With its popularity secured, all the firm has to worry about is actually making money.

Instagram is just twenty-eight months old, having been founded in October of 2010. The site’s development has not been a smooth one, particularly in the last year. The photo sharing service had just begun to expand beyond iOS, when Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) acquired it in April 2012. Since then the company’s expansion has surprised many, as it looked like it was losing users at several points.

The firm has also, like any other social media company, run into several privacy road blocks. The most detrimental of these was the firm’s updated terms of service. The new privacy policy appeared to suggest that picture taken and shared with the service belonged to Instagram, and they would be allowed to sell them without permission of the author.

The company later changed the privacy policy in order to reflect that the firm had no intention of taking ownership of the content shared by users on the site. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has been vindicated in its purchase of the service on its ability to attract users. Although, it is still facing problems making any money whatsoever.

As a public company beholden to its shareholders, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is expected to make a profit. It is not expected to splash out $1 billion on a company that can’t pull in a profit. Instagram may be a great service that attracts millions of users, but it’s not a great business that attracts billions of dollars. The second is, for some reason, more important to shareholders.

The greater tilt toward monetization at Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), and at Instagram by extension, may worry some users, but the Menlo park firm appears intent on not getting in its customers way, doing its best not to alienate people. Instagram is doing well, but shareholders are right to demand better.

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