instagram

Why teens are tiring of Facebook

To understand where teens like to spend their virtual time nowadays, just watch them on their smartphones. Their world revolves around Instagram, the application adults mistook for an elevated photography service, and other apps decidedly less old-fashioned than Mark Zuckerberg's social network.

And therein lies one of Facebook's biggest challenges: With more than 1 billion users worldwide and an unstated mission to make more money, Facebook has become a social network that's often too complicated, too risky, and, above all, too overrun by parents to give teens the type of digital freedom or release they crave.

For … Read more

Post rectangles on Instagram with Squaready or InstaSize

NoCrop, no more. After writing about the iPhone app NoCrop last week that let you post rectangular photos on Instagram, I have uninstalled it in favor of Squaready and InstaSize. Like NoCrop, these two apps are free and let you post an entire rectangular photo to Instagram. Unlike NoCrop, these two apps don't repeatedly hit you over the head with obtrusive ads. Instead, Squaready and InstaSize satisfy themselves with simple banner ads at the bottom of the screen.

First up: Squaready. The app lays out a simple, three-step process, but first I would recommend muting the app's strange … Read more

Facebook CFO calls Instagram a 'formidable competitor'

Even as Facebook's property, Instagram, now with more than 100 million active users, could still pose a threat to the social network's business.

"One of the services that is, I think, a quite formidable competitor is Instagram," David Ebersman, Facebook chief financial officer, told a crowd of investors today at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference.

The striking statement, made in direct response to a question about whether competitors are siphoning attention away from the social network, speaks volumes about Instagram's status as a powerful photo social network all its own.

The comment, … Read more

Instagram tops 100M monthly active users

Instagram, the photo-sharing network owned by Facebook, today announced that it now reaches 100 million people each month.

"Now, more than ever, people are capturing the world in real-time using Instagram -- sharing images from the farthest corners of the globe," Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, wrote in a blog post in which he echoed new boss Mark Zuckerberg's favorite mantra. "What we see as a result is a world more connected and understood through photographs."

The new revelation comes just one month after the service announced for the first time that it had 90 million … Read more

Add text to your Instagrams with TitleFX

TitleFX is similar to another universal iOS app that I covered last month called Over HD. Both apps cost $1.99 at the moment and let you add cool-looking titles to your photos before sharing on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. The apps are similar to one another, but if there can be only one, I'd go with TitleFX.

For starters, it's easier to use than Over HD and its menu wheel. For another,TitleFX also lets you angle text so that it's on an angle or vertical instead of always horizontal. On the other hand, TitleFX … Read more

Break out of the Instagram square with NoCrop

NoCrop is not an app you will want to use with any regularity. The barrage of ads is unyielding, but this free and universal iOS app is useful for those times when Instagram's framing constraint doesn't mesh with the composition of a rectangular photo on your phone.

For such instances, NoCrop lets you share the entire rectangular frame on Instagram. It pulls off this feat by adding a white border on either side of portrait-oriented photos or on the top and bottom of landscapes.

When you first launch the app, you'll need to allow it access to … Read more

Instagram reportedly says no native app for BlackBerry 10

As BlackBerry 10 works to get a foothold in the smartphone market, it's considered crucial that the platform carry all the components important to users. Besides a camera, Wi-Fi support, and a well-designed interface, the smartphone also needs to be able to carry popular apps.

However, it's looking like one of the world's most popular apps isn't planning on developing a version for BlackBerry 10. Instagram is reportedly not going to create a native BlackBerry 10 app, according to AllThingsD. VentureBeat also reported on this back in October.

"There will be no [native] Instagram for … Read more

Instagram's anti-Twitter policy kills engagement -- on Twitter

Data gathered for a study analyzing brand activity on Instagram suggests that the photo-sharing application's hostile strategy to take back attention from rival Twitter is working as planned.

A little more than two months ago, Facebook-owned Instagram pulled the plug on Twitter Card functionality that allowed people to view Instagram photos inside tweets. The controversial change forces Twitter users to click through to Instagram to view photos that were once contained within the information network's web and mobile applications.

The destroyed experience, when coupled with proposed policy changes, painted Instagram in an extremely unflattering light, and many thought … Read more

Facebook grabs most attention among social sites

The U.S. population is enamored with Facebook. The social network ranked as the top Web destination in December 2012, with a 10.8 percent share of total time spent online during the month, according to analytics firm ComScore.

ComScore, which today published a white paper on digital trends, found that while Google sites commanded the largest audience in December, 191.4 million people in the U.S. to be exact, Facebook continues to demand the most attention.

In addition to edging out Google properties, which collectively managed to garner 10 percent of time online, Facebook also accounted for 5 … Read more

Instagram seeks dismissal of lawsuit over TOS change

Instagram has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit over controversial terms-of-service changes the popular photo-sharing service announced last year.

The lawsuit, which was filed in December and seeks class-action status, accused the service of breach of contract and trying to "grab for customer property rights" after announcing revisions to its terms of service that many feared gave the service perpetual rights to sell users' photographs without payment or notification.

After a user backlash, Facebook-owned Instagram soon backpedaled on the changes and announced that the terms would revert to the version in place since the service launched … Read more