Twitter to Introduce Instagram-style Retro Photo Filters
It’s no secret that Twitter was interested in acquiring Instagram before Facebook swooped in and snatched it up. Now, instead of running the popular photo-sharing app, Twitter is waging war against it. Twitter cut off Instagram’s API access for the app’s “Find Your Friends” feature a few months ago, but that was just the beginning. The next major bombshell announcement is coming soon: photo filters.
Unlike the cheesy filters offered by many compact cameras and other camera apps — cartoon-style, anyone? — the Twitter filters will follow the retro path blazed by Instagram and offer vintage film looks: 1960s Kodachrome and 1890s sepia-toned film, for example.
Bilton also reports that work on the new filters began after Twitter executives searched and failed to find an independent photo-sharing app worth acquiring.
Instagram wasn’t the first to bring retro-style photo filters to smartphones, but its social networking component allowed the app to spread virally and quickly overtake its competitors — namely Hipstamatic.
Since Twitter already has a mature social network teeming with 500 million users, adding a photo filter feature could be a huge boon in its attempts to catch up to Instagram in the area of photo sharing.