Showing posts with label Instagram. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Instagram. Show all posts
Agence France-Presse
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Yahoo! joined the fray over smartphone photo-sharing Wednesday by making it more enticing for iPhone users to use its Flickr service amid a rift between Twitter and the popular photo app Instagram.
.Yahoo! joined the fray over smartphone photo-sharing Wednesday by making it more enticing for iPhone users to use its Flickr service amid a rift between Twitter and the popular photo app Instagram.
Improvements to Flickr software tailored for iPhones and iPod touch devices included the addition of Instagram-style "filters" that let people imbue photos with artistic effects.
"We know that some of your best photo moments happen on the fly, so we've made it easier to get the perfect shot when inspiration hits," said a Flickr blog post by Markus Spiering.
"Once you get the shot, there's a built-in editor to quickly correct, crop, or enhance it with one of the new (high-resolution) filters."
Pictures taken with iPhones or iPods can be shared at Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr, or by email, the Yahoo-owned photo service said with a promise that photos will "look gorgeous no matter where they are viewed."
"We built the app with sharing in mind," Flickr vice president Brett Wayn said at the Yahoo! blog.
"We've worked hard with our partners to make sure your pictures are displayed beautifully on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr."
The move came after Twitter added Instagram-style smartphone photo sharing features after the Facebook-owned service made it impossible for Internet users to integrate its images into tweets.
Twitter said its partner Aviary is powering "filters" and other effects for images using the latest Twitter applications for Apple iPhones or smartphones running on Google-backed Android software.
A social media feud between Twitter and Instagram escalated over the weekend as the popular smartphone photo-sharing service made it impossible for Internet users to view its images in "tweeted" messages.
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.
Instagram rose to stardom with the help of Twitter, but has distanced itself from the 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.
A distinctive feature of Instagram is that it allows users sharing smartphone snaps to enhance them with image filters for artistic effects such as mimicking historic types of film.
Yahoo! is out to adapt photo sharing and storage service Flickr to modern lifestyles as part of a focus by newly-minted chief executive Marissa Mayer on connecting with people on smartphones or tablets.
Reuters, December 30, 2012
Facebook Inc's Instagram lost almost a quarter of its daily users a week after it rolled out and thenwithdrew policy changes that incensed users who feared the photo-sharing service would use their pictures without compensation.
Instagram, which Facebook bought for $715 million this year, saw the number of daily active users who accessed the service via Facebook bottom out at 12.4 million as of Friday, versus a peak of 16.4 million last week, according to data compiled by online tracker AppData.
The popular app, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them over the Internet or smartphones, experienced the drop over the brief, often-volatile holiday period.
Other popular apps also saw slippage in usage, and some were more pronounced. Yelp, for instance, saw daily active users - again via Facebook - slide to a weekly low of half a million on Thursday, from a high of 820,000 one week ago.
Instagram disputed the AppData survey, which was compiled from users that have linked the photo service to their own Facebook accounts, historically between 20 and 30 percent of Instagram members.
"This data is inaccurate. We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram," a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Friday.
Looking out over a broader timeframe, Instagram's monthly active users edged up to 43.6 million as of Friday, an increase of 1.7 million over the past seven days, according to AppData.
"We'll have to monitor the data over the coming weeks to gain perspective on trends in Instagram's performance," AppData marketing manager Ashley Taylor Anderson said in an email.
Attention-seeking
The sharp slide in activity highlighted by AppData was bound to draw attention on the heels of the controversial revision to Instagram's terms of service that, among other things, allowed an advertiser to pay Instagram "to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)" without compensation.
The subsequent public outrage prompted an apology from Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. Last week, a California Instagram user sued the company for breach of contract and other claims, in what may have been the first civil lawsuit to stem from the controversial change.
Instagram subsequently reverted to some of its original language.
The move renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.
Analysts say Facebook, the world's largest social network, was laying the groundwork to begin generating advertising revenue, by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information, such as who users follow in advertisements.
Its shares closed down 13 cents or 0.5 percent at $25.91 on the Nasdaq, in line with the broader market.
Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012
Facebook Inc's Instagram lost almost a quarter of its daily users a week after it rolled out and thenwithdrew policy changes that incensed users who feared the photo-sharing service would use their pictures without compensation.
Instagram, which Facebook bought for $715 million this year, saw the number of daily active users who accessed the service via Facebook bottom out at 12.4 million as of Friday, versus a peak of 16.4 million last week, according to data compiled by online tracker AppData.
The popular app, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them over the Internet or smartphones, experienced the drop over the brief, often-volatile holiday period.
Other popular apps also saw slippage in usage, and some were more pronounced. Yelp, for instance, saw daily active users - again via Facebook - slide to a weekly low of half a million on Thursday, from a high of 820,000 one week ago.
Instagram disputed the AppData survey, which was compiled from users that have linked the photo service to their own Facebook accounts, historically between 20 and 30 percent of Instagram members.
"This data is inaccurate. We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram," a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Friday.
Looking out over a broader timeframe, Instagram's monthly active users edged up to 43.6 million as of Friday, an increase of 1.7 million over the past seven days, according to AppData.
"We'll have to monitor the data over the coming weeks to gain perspective on trends in Instagram's performance," AppData marketing manager Ashley Taylor Anderson said in an email.
Attention-seeking
The sharp slide in activity highlighted by AppData was bound to draw attention on the heels of the controversial revision to Instagram's terms of service that, among other things, allowed an advertiser to pay Instagram "to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)" without compensation.
The subsequent public outrage prompted an apology from Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. Last week, a California Instagram user sued the company for breach of contract and other claims, in what may have been the first civil lawsuit to stem from the controversial change.
Instagram subsequently reverted to some of its original language.
The move renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.
Analysts say Facebook, the world's largest social network, was laying the groundwork to begin generating advertising revenue, by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information, such as who users follow in advertisements.
Its shares closed down 13 cents or 0.5 percent at $25.91 on the Nasdaq, in line with the broader market.
Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012
