Social Media, Mobile App | featured news

Over the weekend, Facebook added a stalkerish feature called "Find Friends Nearby" to its mobile website; on Monday, it was gone. "Find Friends Nearby" let users of iOS and Android devices locate BFFs — and perhaps nBFFs (never BFFS) — who were within range.

The new app is similar to Instagram, the photo-sharing app Facebook is in the process of buying for $1 billion. The acquisition, however, has not yet been completed, and Instagram's employees did not work on the Facebook app. Facebook has said it expects the Instagram app to close sometime this year.

Poor Instagram users. First, their beloved photo-sharing application moves from iPhone-only exclusivity to the Android phone masses. A week later, Facebook swallows up the tiny startup behind the app for $1 billion. The purchase sparked worries that Facebook might shutter Instagram or change it for the worse by harvesting their personal information or shoving ads into their carefully curated photo streams.

Can a two-year-old photo sharing app really be worth $1bn? It would buy you some some 2,100 Rolls Royce Phantoms. Or 200 million mosquito nets to fight malaria. Or the whole of the New York Times company (with $50m change to spare). If you are Microsoft, it buys you some 800 AOL patents to fight the next patent war.

“OMG! A big Zynga group hug to OMGPOP, talented creators of Draw Something,” tweeted social games titan Zynga Wednesday. Apparently, in this universe, a “big Zynga group hug” translates to $180 million, the price that All Things D claims Zynga paid to acquire the makers of the most popular mobile Facebook app.