In today’s world of selfies, lategrams and #ThrowbackThursday, your filter choice on Instagram can say a lot about you. Are you the type to go au naturale because you see no need? Or do you overdo the filters and even add HDR to give it a boost because you can never have too much colour?

Whatever your filter choice is from ‘#nofilter’ to Hefe, this infographic tells you what your filter choice says about you. Do you think it’s accurate? Let us know!

Source: Marketo

This new service lets you share photos and videos with up to 15 friends. Think Snapchat meets Instagram (also think Snapchat competitor, like the way they gave Vine a run for their money back in June by adding video)

With this feature, you can share your photo or video with selected friends in the ‘Share To’ section of the app. There, you can select up to 15 of your friends to share your post with.

Every “moment” you share this way will be put in an inbox so they you see them on a separate feed. Of course, you can only send these to people you follow. If you don’t follow a user, they’ll get a request from you. Also, you can choose to receive direct moments from people without following them (not sure why you’d want to do that), and if you just don’t want to receive anything from there, the request will be left pending. When a user has seen your photo or video, you’ll see a check mark next to it. Users can also like each other’s moments. One thing to note is you can’t send these moments with just text. However, the you can send your photo or video with text like regular posts.

It all sounds pretty neat! I am concerned about privacy though, so I’ll definitely be looking out for updates to the Privacy Policy. What do you think about this new feature? Let us know!

To get the feature, simply update your app on iOS or Android.

Source: Engadget

Just in time for December rockies! Popular photo-sharing service, Instagram will let users send private messages to each other before 2014. This comes according to Mashable via GigaOM.

Allowing users to send private messages will add Instagram to the realm of major social networks, including its parent company, Facebook. This could possibly put them in in competition with each other as it will let users interact beyond just likes and comments.

What I’d really like to know is if users would be able to share links with this. Are you excited for this? I know I am. Let us know!

Instagram finally arrived on the Windows phone platform after Nokia attempted to put pressure on the photo-streaming site when they launched their own app called #2InstaWithLove. Well, looks like this move worked as the Instagram app is now available for download in the Windows Phone App Store.

The App is listed as “Instagram BETA” and includes all the usual photo editing features like the filters you find in its other versions but excludes the Video recording function for now. You also cannot tag people or view maps from geo tagged photos but you will be able to view other peoples tags and untag yourself if someone else tagged you in a picture.

You also wont be able to take photos from the app and would need to load up the camera app and jump back to Instagram to upload it but asides this the App works fine and fits well with the Windows Phone Environment.

Lets know how you are enjoying the App if you have downloaded it

Source: The Verge

Facebook says it aims to make video creation and sharing as easy as possible. With this new feature, the general User Experience of the app remains mostly the same in the update with the main difference being the addition of a video camera button which allows users capture up to 15 seconds of video which the user could them apply some editing to and post to their Instagram feed.

This new feature is very similar to the Twitter Vine app. This fact, in conjunction with the recent introduction of hashtags to the Facebook site will inevitably lead to questions about whether Facebook is starting to copy  features from Twitter. Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s founder would have us believe otherwise, claiming that the video feature was in the original plans for Instagram and has been in the works since the app’s inception.

Some of the highlights of this new video-sharing feature include:

• Record and share videos 3 – 15 seconds in length
• Ability to add filters to recorded video (in true Instagram fashion)
• Ability to delete segments of the recorded video
• Ability to select video thumbnail

What do you think of this new feature? Are you going to use it? Does instagram really need video? Is Facebook becoming too much like twitter? Please drop a comment anf let us know.

Following the recent trend of adding filters to photos set by photo-sharing platform Instagram, Vimeo has announced that it will be rolling out its own similar feature. Yes, you heard me say Vimeo. The video sharing/streaming site in partnership with Vivoom has announced a new feature called ‘Looks’ which allows video creators to add visual effects to their videos. The Company said it will be adding over 500 effects as part its Enhancer toolbox allowing user to give their viewers a unique and different look.

Vimeo has made it possible for users to preview these filters in real-time, as well as letting them be customisable in the sense that you can implement various editing options, such as trimming and adjusting the intensity of each one. They also said the best thing about Looks is that the more you use it, the more likely it is to learn your very own visual preferences. Vimeo says it will continue to work with Vivoom to grow and deliver more of the “highest quality effects,” adding that the main goal is for each and every user to “find what’s best for their personal needs.”

If you are Vimeo account holder you can head over to Vimeo now and play around with Looks for the during the 90-day trial and after that it will cost 99 cents for each visual effect.

Would you pay to edit your videos online? Please leave a comment

Source: Engadget

Instagram now extends its arms longer to the web as it announced its “feeds” are now available on the web for its users. In a blog post, Kevin Systrom, the company’s co-founder said that they have been wanting to build this for quite sometime now.

Instagram was built mobile only for specific reason, to share experiences on the go and has steadily grown with that belief. Instagram’s vast growth resulted in the company’s first move at web last year when it launched its web profiles which allowed users and non users to view people’s instagram pages on the web but did not have the ability for  to scroll down your timeline to see what your friends have posted. You can now do this, like a picture and comment when you go to Instagram.com and log in. However, you still need an iOS or Android device to upload pictures.

Lets know what you think about the step Instagram has taken.

The iOS camera was completely redesigned and even has a quick camera roll image selector which is only available for the iPhone 5. A break down of its features below:

• Instagram-themed shutter & shutter release button.
• A preview of the most recent photo on your camera roll.
• Improved Camera Roll image selector for quick access to your last photograph.
• Optional grid guide for live photos and a permanent grid guide for the scale & crop screen.
• Speed and reliability improvements.

According to a blog post by the company, this is the most significant upgrade to the iOS camera since its last redesign about a year ago.

The update also features a new Filter called ‘Willow’. The new monochrome filter with subtle purple tones and a translucent glowing white border will be available on both the iOS and Android versions of the app.

Instagram users have always complained in the past about the issue of their edited image not coming out exactly how it looked during editing, well Instagram has gone around and fixed that with Improved ‘Tilt-shift’. According to them this enhancement will increase quality and accuracy . They say that the blur algorithm has been completely rewritten to give a more realistic rendering of depth of field.

Other Improvements include:

• News Feed redesign that’s easier to digest, in addition to larger images.
• Beautiful new welcome screen design.
• Infinite scroll on user profiles and other grid views.
• Filtered photos are now saved to a separate album called “Instagram” in the iOS camera roll.
• Foursquare button on location pages that opens the Foursquare application, or mobile website, with details about the venue.

The App with its updates are available for download right now. Instagram for iOS version 3.2 is available in Apple’s App Store, and Instagram for Android version 3.3 is available on Google Play.

Update or download and tell us what you think in the comments below.

For the second time in a week, photo sharing service Instagram, has cut off Twitter’s access to its photo cards. Last week, Instagram disabled the ability to view its photos on Twitter, and Twitter did a quick workaround to fix it.

Users are reporting seeing blank spaces when they click “view photo” for an Instagram photo on Twitter, or on any of its third party apps.

This is definitely a move to get more people to view Instagram’s recently launched web profiles but it seems to be shooting itself in the foot like Twitter is doing with restrictions to the Twitter API for developers.

Facebook, which purchased Instagram, has told The Verge that the change was expected and is part of its decision to end Twitter cards.

It’s very important to note that Instagram’s viral adoption is largely due to its Twitter support like founder, Kevin System has said a number of times.

What do you think about this move? Do you want your Instagram photos back on Twitter?

Instagram, the free photo-sharing and digital filter app has announced that it will launch Web profiles sometime this week.

Web profiles will enable users to edit their profiles as well as view, like, and follow other users right from your web browser as opposed to only viewing only the picture that the user shared and not being able to like unless you have an iOS or Android powered device . According to Instagram’s  blog, users have been requesting this feature and they have listened and responded.

If you haven’t got an iOS or an Android-based device, you still cannot upload via web.

The Web profiles layout takes a hint from Facebook’s profile layout with a cover picture above the profile picture and will be accessible through links as extensions from the Instagram website, for example Nike’s Instagram username is @nike so their Instagram profile can be viewed on the web through instagram.com/nike.

Below are screenshots of the web profiles.

Did you like the exclusivity to mobile platform that Instagram had before or do you love this addition? Leave you comments below.