As you may have already seen on various social networking websites, Facebook will be acquiring the popular social imaging sharing application, Instagram, for $1 billion.

Today, about two hours ago, Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom published a blog post, stating that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook. Also in the blog post, Systrom says that Instagram “is not going away” and that the two companies will be working together to “evolve Instagram and build the network.”

According to the blog post, Instagram will still be the same application that users “know and love”, and everyone will retain their followers and such, as well.

In addition, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg posted to his Facebook profile’s timeline, saying “I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.”

Zuckerberg also said in his post that while Facebook and Instagram both compliment each other, “we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.” He then goes on to say “That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.”

With Instagram for Android just released about a week ago, on March 27, 2012, I find this to be an interesting announcement. I think it’ll be interesting to see how Instagram can grow and develop now that they have the power and funds of Facebook behind them.

For more information regarding this announcement, you should check out this blog post from Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg’s timeline post, and this article from TechCrunch If you’re interested in what Instagram is all about and what you can do with the application, please feel free to check out this TechnicalCafe blog post that I wrote a while back.