But it will still serve a purpose for many.
Micro-blogging site Twitter enlisted image SDK Aviary to enter the mobile photo filters market yesterday, offering Android and iOS users a chance to edit their snaps with size and colour adjustments before posting them to timelines.
It comes on the back of an API feud with two-year-old Instagram, (arguably) the leader of mobile photo-editing space with $1 billion backing from Facebook and more than 100m users.
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom regards his startup as a "community, not a filters app," but said "community" still revolves around photo filters no matter how it's dressed up. This ultimately puts the two firms in competition with each other.
The big question here is, why does Twitter need to introduce filters? Well, for a start, Twitter has crossed the half billion user milestone – fivefold Instagram's user base – and just a fraction of those will be Instagram users, thus immediately enriching the experience for the majority.
What's more, 40 per cent of the world's top brands promote their company with Instagram, but they could potentially become perturbed that they'll no longer be able to incorporate the two portals in a harmonious timeline-based utopia.
As a result, Twitter could look to usurp Instagram's business and monetise the new filters feature to brands alongside the existing Promoted Tweets advertising vertical. That's bad news for Instagram, which is still yet to generate a profit, something its owner Facebook has only started to do with mobile this year.
Twitter's downfall is that it only has eight filters at present compared to the almost 20 of Instagram. The former's offering isn't nearly as finely tuned as the latter's either, with the effects looking quite similar as though they've been rolled out in a rush. Of course, the feature will instantly seem like a bright new revelation if you've never used Instagram and have nothing to compare it to.
The bottom line is that Twitter's feature has the potential to be a revenue generator, and will likely be employed by a large portion of consumers, but Instagram usage has been ferocious during events like Thanksgiving and Hurricane Sandy. And with Christmas around the corner, it's safe to assume the app will continue experiencing bumper usage, regardless of Twitter's new venture.
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