Twitter making Instagram-esque photo filters for its apps
Twitter is said to be working on its own retro photo filters, to bypass the Facebook-owned Instagram.
It looks like Twitter is going to bring retro photo filters to its mobile apps. That's according to a report in The New York Times, anyway.
Twitter hasn't confirmed or denied anything yet, but the Times says the microblogging service will let you share "altered images" and bypass Instagram. Instagram is owned by Facebook now, after all, so it's hardly surprising if Twitter doesn't want to send any business the way of its rival.
Maybe Twitter fears that now Facebook is in the driving seat, it can choose which services let people share photos using Instagram. One flick of a switch, and millions of Twitter users could be cut off from their photo sharing service of choice.
According to a Twitter employee who didn't want to be named, plenty of celebrities would welcome filters in Twitter's mobile apps. The company's Very Important Tweeters (V.I.T.'s, as they're known internally) mostly use Instagram, like everyone, but this would cut out the middle man. Which is fine, provided the results are on a par, of course.
When Facebook announced it was buying Instagram, Twitter execs started the hunt for a rival company to buy. But after looking around, they decided to just make their own filters. Hey, if you've got the resources, why not?
Twitter signed a deal with pic storage site Photobucket in June, but that's just for storing your snaps.
Twitter is also looking into making its own video editing software, so you can polish your vids in-app without having to use a third-party program. Could this be the start of a whole slew of in-Twitter apps coming our way?
Would you use Twitter-made filters? Or is Instagram on another level? Would Facebook cut off Twitter from using Instagram? Or is Twitter just being paranoid? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
Image credit: Bravura magazine