Meanwhile, Instagram is morphing into Twitter as well

Dec 11, 2012 08:47 GMT  ·  By

Perhaps spurred by the whole Instagram kerfuffle, Twitter has unveiled photo filters, the weapon it hopes will help it win the war.

Photo filters in a mobile app haven't been original since 2010 and including them in the Twitter apps seems like a desperate and unnecessary move, but there are a few things going for it.

Photo sharing apps, besides Instagram, have all fluttered due to a very simple reason, they focused on the wrong thing, i.e. the filters rather than the social connections.

Twitter seems to be doing the same, the catch is that it's already got the social connections, it's one of the biggest social networks around at this point.

With the new emphasis on photos, it can perhaps spur people to share more photos or start using Twitter in new ways. The hope must be to convince at least some of Instagram's users, those that tweeted most of their photos, to switch to Twitter completely.

It remains to be seen whether the move will be enough to actually convince a significant number of people to drop Instagram.

The threat is even bigger as it is becoming increasingly obvious that Instagram has its sights set on Twitter as well, it's moving to the web in a big way.

Founder and CEO Kevin Systrom even said he envisions Instagram as a source of news and info, not just family photos.

It's clear that he wants to expand Instagram into a sort of Twitter, but with pictures. That strategy would make even more sense for Facebook, which hasn't been able to make the same switch. Facebook is the world's biggest social network, but it is no replacement for Twitter and not for lack of trying.

Facebook is now betting on Instagram to lure in some Twitter users. All the while, Twitter is doing everything in its power to drive away users, i.e. become more of a media-centric service.