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Facebook to slather Instagram in ad goo as photo-sharing app OPENS WIDE

Say 'arghhhhhhh'

Facebook has confirmed plans to blast its photo filter app Instagram with ads.

The Mark Zuckerberg-run outfit bought Instagram in 2012 for roughly $715m and, since then, it has opened up the service to a small number of brands.

Now, businesses of all sizes will soon be able to flood the app with ads.

On Tuesday, Instagram said in a blog post that it had cobbled together its own ad platform, which the firm said was a "native" design that would apparently sit well on the photo-sharing service.

Apps have proved to be extremely tricky bedfellows for admen up to now. Although, Facebook has done a bloody good job of sucking up mobile revenues, which brought it record returns in 2014.

And, as of Facebook's first quarter, it had derived a staggering 73 per cent of its total ad sales from its mobile biz.

Instagram, then, ought to be in a good position to ride on its daddy's coattails by building sales from world+dog ads on its service.

What does this mean for the 300 million or so chumps who share their pics on Instagram? Facebook will, later this year, allow advertisers to target you "based on demographics and interests".

Translation: your habits, location and other delightful data will be heavily tracked and slurped by ad businesses.

And now a message from your Zucked-up sponsors:

There are more than two million advertisers who actively use Facebook to market their business and we want to leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing and measuring the success of ads on Instagram.

We will start by opening the Instagram Ads API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies, and we plan to expand globally throughout the year.

Shake it like a Polaroid picture. ®

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