The times they are a'changing. On Monday, it was announced that Facebook was willing to pay $1 billion for sepia toned photos of hipsters in fields. The actual announcement was that
Facebook forked over $1 billion to buy photo-sharing platform Instagram, specifically its active, passionate community and its dominance with mobile users. The Internet
caught wind of the news in some pretty delightfully funny ways, but a general consensus emerged that digital/mobile technology and social media have undeniably changed, and will continue to change, how our world operates. These digital innovations took down former corporate giants like Kodak (which filed for bankruptcy filing in 2011) and may be taking down other media behemoths such as the New York Times: Instagram's $1 billion valuation edges out the NYT's $970 million. Yet some Instagram users fled and
deleted their accounts to stay out from under the thumb of Mark Zuckerberg and many questioned whether users' photos were now the property of Zuckerberg and Facebook. It seems digital innovations may also be taking down our levels of privacy (whether we like it or not). While I am holding on to my privacy for dear life, I've been pretty cooperative being swept up in the tide of tech. But this deal made me think-- is Instagram really worth that much? Was Groupon worth that much? And what is the mark that these tech companies plan on leaving on the world?
