14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook knew, well before buying Instagram, that it needed to do more with mobile photos. Photos had been the site's killer feature on the desktop and, for a long time, were woefully underrepresented in the mobile app. What's more, other apps, from startups, were eating Facebook's lunch in this area.
Granted, Facebook has rarely been "first" in anything so that in itself wasn't much of a problem. It could do as it always did, though not always successfully, look at what everyone else was doing and then do it better.
When it did buy Instagram though, it looked like Facebook went for the second option, the rarer one at the company, and bought the competition outright.
But now we know it had a backup plan that, for some reason, it is now using, its own photo app. It's dubbed Facebook Camera and it's a stand-alone app.
It is fairly similar to Instagram and, for that matter, any other photo sharing app out there.
"Today, we're introducing Camera, a new mobile app that makes using Facebook photos faster and easier," Facebook announced.
"When you launch the app, you'll see a feed of just great photos from the people you care about. You can swipe to see more of any album or tap to enlarge an individual photo," it said.
"You can quickly share multiple photos all at once instead of having to post one at a time. Just select the shots you want to share by tapping the check-mark on each photo and then hit post," it added.
The app is fairly slick and fast, it's a good photo sharing app at first glance. It is a great improvement on the Facebook mobile photo experience, that's for sure, rather than going through several sections to view, capture and share photos, you can do it all from one app, straight away.
What's more, your friends' photos will be there as well so you'll be able to check them out, comment on them or like them, again, without loading the main Facebook app.
The photos will be available inside the app, but also online for everyone else on Facebook to see, this being the main difference between Instagram and the new app.
Still, it is a queer move, there's not enough to separate Instagram and Facebook Camera even though they serve somewhat distinct purposes.
Facebook has launched plenty of things only to shut them down a few months later. It also pledged to keep Instagram independent for the time being. And, of course, the Instagram deal isn't final yet. It will be interesting to see how this evolves.