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A SOCIAL MEDIA feud between Twitter and Instagram has escalated as the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service made it impossible for Internet users to integrate images from tweets.
Instagram, which has some 100 million users, is seeking to route photo viewers to its own website, where it has the potential to make money from ads or other mechanisms, instead of letting Twitter get the benefits.
Previously, Instagram pictures shared in messages tweeted from smartphones could be viewed unaltered at Twitter.
Twitter indicated in a status update Sunday that Instagram had “disabled photo integration with Twitter” and that “as a result, photos are no longer appearing in Tweets or user photo galleries.”
“While tweeting links to Instagram photos is still possible, you can no longer view the photos on Twitter, as was previously the case,” Twitter said.
Last week, Instagram had made it more difficult to view pictures in tweets, with the images cropped from the posts called Twitter Cards. By Sunday, the images were no longer viewable.
The move escalates the battle between the smartphone app Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook this year, and the popular message service Twitter.
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom told a Paris conference last week that the move was part of a shift by the photo app to direct more users to the Instagram site.
Instagram rose to stardom with the help of Twitter, but has distanced itself from the one-to-many text messaging service since being acquired by leading social network Facebook.
Facebook completed its acquisition of Instagram in September. The original price was pegged at $1 billion but the final value was less because of a decline in the social network’s share price.
Instagram last month was given a Facebook spin with the roll-out of online profiles that let people showcase themselves and photos they’ve taken with the smartphone application. People can share their profiles with whomever they wish as well as “follow” other Instagram users, commenting on or expressing “likes” for pictures.
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instigram is a waste of time!!! why get the app when you can just post pics directly via Facebook or Twitter??!! If Im redirected to instigram I don’t bother to look st the pic.
Because if you’re one of the rare non Facebookers, you still get to see people’s pics without their latest check in, bowel movement, drama etc.
Are people still using Facebook?????
Apparently …
I like Instagram as a platform but being forced to link to an external site is frustrating and will certainly put me off using it.
Surely they should realise conveniencing their user base rather than irritating is the way to build their community
They have to create a revenue model. What was astounding was FB paying a billion for a company with no earnings.
I agree but potentially isolating a significant proportion of their user base isn’t too smart, there are plenty of people who don’t use Facebook but are very active on Twitter
In my day, ya just bought a disposable camera.
Your day is long gone
facebook is dead now anyway
#firstworldproblems
I don’t really see Facebook and Twitter as competing services. I use Facebook to keep in touch with people I actually know personally and Twitter mostly for communication about topics in a public way, more like blogging / broadcasting. It is a microblogging service after all, not a social network in the sense that Facebook is.
All they’re going to do is annoy users and find that people who used Instagram to post to both Facebook and Twitter will just find some alternative app to do similar things.
It’ll be funny when lifeclip passes them by
On twitter, people always complain about facebook but i’ve never heard facebook users complain about twitter…the stupid snobbery should stop (excuse the alliteration) because both sites are excellent…they are just used in different ways….Instagram is a brilliant tool also and I couldnt care less if it was bought by facebook,twitter or ryanair….
have your say