Twitter Bites Back at Instagram

You may have seen this week that Facebook owned Instagram have removed support of Twitter cards.  This means that the images you share from Instagram on your Twitter account will no longer automatically be shown but will consist only of a link.  The purpose behind this move is to increase traffic to the Instagram website but for users of the two services, it's quite an annoyance.

image: The Next Web

Whether it is really an ambitious attempt to compete with Twitter or just Facebook's influence moving the service away from the platform, the two are no longer seamlessly linked.  Although there are a few ways to get around this (the useful IFTTT work around which automatically posts your Instagram image as a Twitter image or the Chrome extension InstaTwit which put the image back on Twitter but only works for those with it installed) Twitter has hit back today with filters of their own.

You can now add a filter to any image in the mobile Twitter app and get those nice image effects that Instagram offers without needing to use Instagram at all.  The filters work very nicely in app too and don't look too bad (see below).  However, the community and functions of Instagram is still exclusive to Instagram itself and can still only be accessed through it's native app.

My reindeer image on Instagram and the new Twitter filter

Instagram seems to be trying to divide loyalties and I admit, I may begin to use Instagram less.  Either way, that lovely, seamless integration across social media platforms is disappearing and that is a real shame.