Facebook announced Monday that it had reached an agreement to acquire Instagram,

Facebook announced Monday that it had reached an agreement to acquire Instagram, describing it as “a fun, popular photo-sharing app for mobile devices,” for $1 billion in cash and shares.

An Instagram application tuned to Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices has been downloaded more than 27 million times since the first version was released in late 2010 by the San Francisco startup.

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom released the figure while providing a glimpse last month at a version of the application tailored for smartphones power by Google-backed Android software.

The free mini-program lets people give classic looks to square photos using “filters” and then share them at Twitter, Facebook or other social networks.

Apple crowned Instagram its app-of-the-year for 2011.

Instagram’s roster of backers includes Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

A simple idea turned into a BILLION Dollars!

Source AP