Twitter and Instagram have had their share of enmity after Facebook purchased the photo-sharing social networking platform, and Twitter seems to be rethinking its strategy.
According to a new report, Twitter is planning to update its mobile apps to introduce Instagram-like filters and allow users to easily click pictures and share them over the microblogging platform.
In other words, users will soon be able to take "hipster" photos with their Twitter app on their mobile device, much like the service already provided by Instagram.
This move is more interesting when considering that at one point, Twitter was interested in acquiring a startup to offer photo service of its own. Facebook's acquisition of Instagram only poured more gas on the fire, but according to the New York Times' Nick Bilton, Twitter ultimately decided that the photo services it was looking at were too expensive for what they offered. Consequently, the microblogging company opted to build its own photo service. The rumored Instagram-like photo filters aim to do just that, and will reportedly become available within the next few months.
Twitter's alleged move, however, sparked mixed reactions from the media and tech pundits, and most of them believe it is a bad idea. The Next Web's John Mitchell, for instance, made a compelling argument that Twitter should work with, not against Instagram, instead of trying to further isolate its network from the other social networks out there.
"Instagram works like Twitter, but it's visual instead of textual. People love it. They share their view of the world there, and like-minded people find their visions and appreciate them. Twitter's getting jealous, and now it wants to replace Instagram," wrote Mitchell. "But it will do so with inferior apps and an increasingly bizarre interface that wants to be all things to all people. With none of the intimacy of Instagram, Twitter's copycat effort can't help but be lame in comparison."
Meanwhile, a Twitter employee explained why the move makes sense. The tipster told the New York Times (NYT) that Twitter's V.I.T., i.e. Very Important Twitters such as celebrities and media personalities, would be very pleased to have filters in the Twitter mobile apps. Most V.I.T's currently use Instagram to take photos and Twitter to share them, as they often have a larger following on the microblogging site. Instagram-like filters on Twitter would make things easier.
Twitter also signed a deal with photo-storage site Photobucket back in June, but the company has since decided to store images on its own servers. The company is also looking into adding more tools to its mobile applications, including the ability to upload and possibly edit videos without having to use a third-party application or service such as YouTube, the employee further told the NYT.
