Facebook, which owns Instagram, believes that the network could pose a threat to their business. "One of the services that is, I think, a quite formidable competitor is Instagram," David Ebersman, Facebook chief financial officer, told investors at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference. This is a huge testament to Instagram’s own place in the social networking services business.

At the moment, while Facebook owns Instagram, it is not benefiting out of it, at least monetarily. And with the company now saying openly that some of its business is now shifting to its own other entity, we can expect a tighter integration between the two in the not too distant future. At the moment though, Facebook would do well to not tinker too much, and let Instagram grow as much as possible, allowing it to pass services like Twitter and Google+.