Twitter Loses Ability to Properly Display Instagram Photos
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Though some part of me can't help but to feel somewhat glad. Twitter has been treating developers like crap for the past year; is somewhat comforting to see them getting a taste of that.
If it's decent, I suspect it'll replace Instagram for many Twitter users. Especially if Instagram still doesn't allow their pictures to show up in the card view.
Unless Twitter creates a section/site dedicated to just photos, it will not be a threat to Instagram.
But now I think Instagram's clear use case is seeing the world through your friends' eyes--what they're eating, seeing, doing. Filters seem less important now, especially given the #nofilter trend.
The #nofilter crowd will move on to the next photo sharing hotness as soon as it comes out. A market is made up of many demographics, the #nofilter crowd are the early adopters who want to distinguish themselves. At first this was by using filters, now it's by not using filters and leveraging their followers for the same dopamine induced reward cycle that was once delivered by the filters. So, while it may seem like I agree with you, I don't. The fact that there are filters is the big deal with Instagram, but for some people, making the choice not to use them, is their own form of self expression, but without the filters to choose not to use, it wouldn't be instagram. They are still vitally important, even when they are not used. I hope this makes sense, I am not sure I have articulated my point very well.
Instagram's FAQ actually puts their social network integration as a major feature of the app, even mentioning Twitter as one of the compatible networks.
...and I would absolutely take that bet. I know a ton of (less tech-y) people that check Instagram like it's a bad addiction. It's become a less involved Facebook- checking that results in a huge cognitive load, Instagram is just a nice stream of photos for you to browse through.
I get far more 'native' comments on my Instagram photos than I do through the integrated Facebook post. I suspect I am not alone.
In 12 months we'll all be back on MySpace.
The press nearly always gets this wrong and the viewpoint has taken root in our collective thinking.
Competition is about customers, not competitors. With competition, customers should get better stuff, more stuff and cheaper stuff.
I've seen very little "users losing" in the past 10 years, despite continuous reporting to the contrary. Were this not the case, we wouldn't even have a twitter, facebook or instagram - we'd all be using the same thing provided by the same company and it would most definitely be outmoded and suck.
Competition works. Get used to it, change sucks.
Who are FaceBook's and Twitter's customers? Certainly not the users. So it's still possible that users lose.
To take an example relevant to the OP, what about Twitter shutting down third party clients? How was that a win for the user?
When companies "compete" by buying out the competition and shutting down trade, there is a loss of choice and utility and a loss to consumers.
(granted, this is a simplistic view and subject to the whims of regulatory distortion and other externalities - I think my core premise is sound though. Even though these specific companies might be limiting options that just creates more opportunity for competition and stronger benefits for customers...)
Follow-up question: Why?
After the noise dies down, I hope this issue will be seen as another argument against proprietary graphic encodings and software patents in general.