instagram

An Election Day Instagram is worth a thousand tweets

If there's been one sacred cow that's stood the test of time in America, it's the secrecy of a citizen's ballot. But in the age of Instagram, that cow has wandered straight off the farm.

Do a search for "Election2012" on Instagram today and there's no shortage of pictures of people's ballots. Or polling places, people's "I voted" stickers, and even Big Bird waiting to exercise his franchise. Whether they're excited that they voted -- maybe for the first time? -- or if they just want all the world to know who they picked, it's clear that a lot of people think Instagram is the obvious way to share their enthusiasm for the election.

Regardless of the fact that there seems to be a school of thought that Instagramming your ballot may be illegal, there's no doubt that the election, following immediately after Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast, is a big moment for the young photo-sharing service. … Read more

Instagram gets user profiles for the Web

Instagram users will soon be able to browse their friends' Instagram photos on the Web.

The photo-sharing network will roll out new user profiles in the next few days, the company announced today, and the layout looks a bit like the top of a Facebook page.

The new profiles feature a dynamic cover photo -- a collage made up of your most recent photos -- and a profile pic resting to the left of it. It also includes a bio and the user's number of photos, followers, and the number of followed users. Users can follow other users, comment … Read more

Facebook pushes you to vote

Monday's CNET Update has the power:

The CNET New York office has reopened, and it's great to be back to give you today's tech news roundup:

- Apple sold 3 million iPads in the three days since new models went on sale. That number includes the sales of two models: the iPad Mini fourth-generation iPad. But the bulk of the sales are estimated to be for the smaller tablet.

- Tuesday is election day in the U.S., so prepare to be bombarded with voting reminders and peer pressure on social media. Facebook is making a big push … Read more

Beyond hashtags: Instagram's next challenge is tackling big data

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said his company's big hurdle is knowing how to mine the constant stream of photos being uploaded each day to the popular network.

"Instagram isn't necessarily a photo company, or a communications company as I like to say, we're also going to be a big data company," he said today at the GigaOm Road Map conference in San Francisco.

Systrom said the company, recently purchased by Facebook, needs to find better ways to organize the billions of photos shared on Instagram. That means looking beyond hashtags for looking … Read more

Instagram CEO: Twitter's photo filters don't scare me

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said he has no problem with Twitter adding filters -- something Facebook-owned Instagram is known for -- to its photos.

"I don't think that in anyway threatens Instagram because Instagram is a community and not a filter app," Systrom said at the GigaOm's Road Map conference in San Francisco.

It's been reported that Twitter is planning to launch a filters feature in the coming months.

Systrom said adding filters to photos is now ubiquitous with photo sharing and photo apps, so Twitter jumping on the bandwagon is not … Read more

Beware: Fake airline Instagram accounts promise free flights

Fake Instagram accounts for American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and JetBlue have been set up with the promise of free flights.

The accounts, @americanairlines_giveaways, @united_giveaways, @jetbluegiveaways, and @delta_giveaways, all work very similarly. They promise a free airline ticket or round-trip ticket to the first several thousand followers, which vary depending on the account.

The accounts have been pretty effective at garnering followers. Delta's fake account already has 21,000 followers after it promised a free trip for the first 20,000 people who followed and shared the account. Likewise, the JetBlue account has 20,000 followers. The American Airlines profile … Read more

Report: Twitter taking on Instagram with its own photo filters

Twitter appears poised to take on Instagram directly by offering sets of photo filters through its mobile apps, according to a report in The New York Times.

The Times reported that "in the coming months, Twitter plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos that will allow people to share altered images on Twitter and bypass Instagram."

If true, this would potentially be a very big move for Twitter, because it could keep people taking photos on smartphones from using the Facebook-owned Instagram altogether. Whether or not Twitter could create as passionate a community around … Read more

Which app should you use to browse Instagram on an iPad?

I am a regular user of Instagram and a regular user of an iPad. Unfortunately, these two items do not directly connect. Instagram has yet to release an app optimized for the iPad's larger screen, and I would advise against anyone browsing pixelated images using Instagram magnified on the iPad. Thus, you must turn to a third-party app.

Before we proceed, I should state that Instagram does not let you upload photos via a third-party app. Such an app lets you view your various Instagram feeds and offers a variety of fun and useful features, from commenting on and … Read more

Hurricane Sandy photos inundating Instagram

Hurricane Sandy is poised to become the superstorm of the century as it looks to go for a stroll across the Atlantic seaboard and right into the middle of America's largest metropolis. In the process, and certainly a bit perversely, this unholy marriage of a tropical storm and a Nor'easter is shaping up to be a feather in the cap of Instagram.

The photo-sharing app that Facebook snapped up earlier this year is reporting that users have already uploaded and tagged hundreds of thousands of photos related to Hurricane Sandy:

The Instagram community has been sharing photos from … Read more

Sandy is a disaster, but these photos are ridiculous

As almost everyone knows, Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the East Coast, and when all is said and done, its likely to leave a wide, expensive, and potentially fatal path of destruction in its wake. Yet despite a massive number of legitimate photos of the storm being uploaded to every social network you can think of -- including 10 a second to Instagram -- a number of sensational photos seem to be dominating the conversation.

The photos show incredible images like the eye of the hurricane floating over the top of the Statue of Liberty. Or of a very … Read more