The new versions of the Twitter app will let people take a photo, crop it, enhance it, add one of eight filters to it, and share it — all without leaving the app. The filters themselves were created by Aviary, a company that makes photo-editing software development kits for mobile apps.
The move comes one day after Instagram completely cut off the ability to embed Instagram photos in tweets. That was just the latest volley in an escalating fight between the two companies.
Twitter’s moves into photo sharing are clearly a defensive action against a growing threat from Instagram. Twitter has been hosting photos for more than a year, and even the filters themselves have been months in the making.
Yet it’s not clear exactly how effective the move will be. Photo filters are everywhere now. And while the new app means Twitter users can still embed Instagram-style photos in their timelines, it’s clearly not an Instagram replacement. Instagram isn’t a mere photo-sharing app any more than Facebook is. It has a powerful and unique network effect all its own. It will take considerably more than eight light filters to fight that.
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