Instagram has made quite a few headlines lately: its hugely popular presence at SXSW music festival, surpassing the 30 million user mark, launching its Android app and the backlash from some iOS users who disapproved of the launch. But these headlining stories all pale in comparison to today’s announcement, as Facebook has agreed to acquire Instagram in a deal worth “approximately $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares of Facebook.”

This is a huge acquisition for the social media giant, and the largest acquisition Facebook has made to date. Mark Zuckerberg further highlighted some details of the deal in a post on his Facebook Timeline:

I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

For now, Instagram will remain an independent app:

…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.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

The news of this acquisition of course has had social media world buzzing throughout the day. The biggest question: what will happen to Instagram after the purchase, despite Facebook’s assurance that the Instagram experience for users will not change.

Backlash has already begun, and that backlash is due to Facebook’s on-going saga of privacy problems and concerns. Users are now threatening to delete their accounts and some websites and blogs are offering solutions for backing up and exporting Instagram photos before deleting their accounts for good.

Instagram users: Are you excited about the news of the Facebook acquisition, or are the privacy concerns weighing out? For those who have not yet jumped on the Instagram bandwagon, would this knowledge that it will be backed by a major social networking player like Facebook entice or deter you from opening an Instagram account?