<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"When Instagram launched its first app in October 2010, it did not strike most people as the kind of startup that would be acquired for $1 billion. \n\"We were all like, 'what's the big deal? It's just photos and filters,\" Brian Blau, a Research Director with the Consumer Technology and Markets Group at Gartner, tells Mashable. But in retrospect, he adds, \"There's something to be said around that simplicity.\"\nThe app had almost 200,000 users within the first week. By February, it had 1.75 million users, and three months later that number had jumped to 4 million. \nBy the time Facebook acquired Instagram on Monday, the startup's iPhone app had been downloaded 30 million times. In the same week, its six-day-old Android app hit the 5 million mark.\nMeanwhile, Instagram's valuation has shot up with similarly impressive speed. Facebook acquired Instagram just as the startup was closing a round of funding at a $500 million valuation. Instagram's $1 billion price tag means it literally doubled its valuation within a week. \nDesigners at Visually have compiled an infographic that documents the startup's journey from photo app to $1 billion startup using, appropriately, Instagram photos.\n\n\n\n\t\t \n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/04/10/instagram-timeline/>