Twitter was reportedly beaten to the punch by Facebook when it came to acquiring the popular photo-sharing application, Instagram.
According to an in-depth New York Times report on the rise of Instagram, several sources close to the matter claim that Twitter had expressed interest in buying the start-up in the months preceding the $1 billion Facebook deal.
Twitter co-founder and Instagram investor Jack Dorsey is said to have attempted to secure the deal. Dorsey was one of a handful of other investors who personally invested in the photo-sharing service last year. Dorsey has been criticised by some commentators for failing to act before Facebook.
At the time of the announcement, Business Insider said “Twitter blew it” and stated Dorsey made a mistake by letting Instagram grow into a billion-dollar company “before making it an offer CEO Kevin Systrom could not refuse”. It is believed that Instagram could have further enhanced Twitter's strength in the mobile space - an area in which Facebook has been notably weak.
Last week Monday, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the acquisition in an out-of-the-blue post on his Facebook Timeline. The New York Times reports that Zuckerberg contacted Instagram founder Kevin Systrom on the Friday and the details of the deal were hammered out over that same weekend.
Pushing the price tag
Twitter is yet to officially comment. It has, however, been noted that Twitter's interest in Instagram may have been one of the driving factors behind the hefty $1 billion in cash and shares that Facebook shelled out for the service.
At the time of the announcement, both Facebook and Instagram emphasised that the app would remain a standalone service that they will continue to evolve, and that will still allow cross-platform sharing.
In the week before the buy-out, Instagram extended its reach from iOS with a new Android application. The app has since seen the service grow from 30 million to over 40 million users in total.
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