A Silicon Valley fairy tale: Facebook, Twitter and the Instagram IPO

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom photographed at Ocean Beach in San Francisco.

The sale of Instagram to Facebook for a cool billion dollars last spring was the ultimate Silicon Valley fairy tale: 18 months from launch to offer. But for co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom it was more of a roller-coaster ride, writes Kara Swisher in Vanity Fair. Read more

Instagram continues rapid growth

The Online Colleges infographic below documents the rapid growth of mobile photo app Instagram.

Recently acquired for $1 billion by Facebook, Instagram is on track to gain 100 million users only two years after its iOS launch in October, 2010. Among large social media platforms, only Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr have reached the 100 million user mark.

iPhone 5, iPad 2 to focus on social networking apps

Social networking is apparently Apple's new motif. The company has filed six social networking patents  in the past year. The development of social networking apps are a key part of plans  for the next generation iPhone 5 and iPad 2.