Fresh after releasing Instagram for Android, today saw the news that Facebook have signed the deal to acquire the photo sharing startup for a cool 1bn dollars. It’s not a turn of events that us here at Social Gadget predicted, but it’s fair to say that the acquisition certainly makes sense.

Photo sharing is perhaps the most important aspect of Facebook’s success and with today’s news, it would seem that the company is betting on it remaining as important in the future.

In a post by Zuckerberg today, Facebook’s CEO told of how after the acquisition his team  ”need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook”. This was echoed in a blog post by Kevin Systrom CEO of Instagram, who reassured users that “the Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love”.

Both postings agree upon the fact that Instagram shall be able to post to the other social networks it currently does, even after  it is owned by Facebook, and friend and follower list can remain separate if so wished by the user.

The acquisition is a huge undertaking by the social media giant, one of a scale that Zuckerberg doesn’t feel will happen again anytime soon.

“We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all”

With Facebook only a couple a weeks away from what may be the largest internet IPO of all time, let’s hope the move pays off for team Zucks.