Instagram launched a web-based interface on Tuesday, February 5, 2013. The interface of the website that mirrors to its mobile app, allows its users to log in from a browser to view and interact with photos from people in their feed. It is seen as a big move for the company that grew its fame as a mobile-only social network.
Since its launch in October 2010, Instagram is focusing on building a simple app to inspire creativity by allowing its users to capture everyday moments through the lens of their mobile phones. However, to expect a further growing community, Instagram started to expand its service to the desktop web by launching its web version at Instagram.com.
Although Instagram had previously launched Web Profiles for its users since December last year, and gave its users the ability to interact with others’ photos on the web, it had not offered a way to log in and browse user's network’s photo stream in the same way they can within the app. Now, the company offers the same user experience in both mobile and web.
The Instagram feed on the web, functions like it does on mobile phones. Users can browse through latest photos of other users they follow, with updates as they post new photos. "Like" photos can be done by double clicking or by pressing the "Like" button. The site also enables its users to engage conversation about a photo with inline commenting, and browsing through pages of recent photos is served in a real-time. The web itself is mobile friendly: resizing the browser window down will show a single feed column, similar to its mobile feed. Instagram for the web has aimed to bring a simple, powerful and beautiful Instagram experience to desktop.
"This product was made possible by a small, talented group of engineers and designers on the Instagram team whose goal it was to make Instagram for the web be the most simple, straightforward, and beautiful web experience for the Instagram community," said Kevin Systrom, Instagram co-founder on the company's blog.
Moving to desktop interaction is seen to be great for most users that expects to have Instagram experience on their browsers. The new desktop Instagram at first can be puzzling to put together as the linear experience of vertical photos presented one at a time doesn't work as well on the web as it does on mobile. There's also a lot of wasted space on either side of the image. And the image itself is quite small.
Instagram is launching Web Profiles as a way to give a simple way for users to share their photos with more people and to make it easier for them to discover new users on the web. Instagram is rolling out profiles to all of its users over the course of the week.
It hasn't taken a long time for people to start saying that Instagram's move to the web is the beginning of the Facebook look alike service. They imagine it releasing a "Newsfeed" of its own. Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012 for $1 billion. People could also say that Facebook is trying to become much more like Instagram by offering all of its services on mobile phones.
Instagram and Intimacy
Instagram was neither the first photo sharing application on the iPhone, nor the first to use "filters" to simulate the aging effects on old film. The app that was only available for mobile devices, gained massive attention because of the sense of intimacy it gives to most users. After a long time sharing photos online, including on Facebook, which was on its way to become one of the largest photo sharing platforms in the world, Instagram is creating a place to share more private snapshots. And because the photos were available only people who follows, there wasn't nearly as much risk in sharing a snapshot on a public timeline.
With millions of users swarming to the platform, especially after the Facebook acquisition and the addition of Instagram for Android devices, Instagram soon had its own place in the competition where photos could be voted up by thousands of other users.
With hundreds of millions users on Instagram, the company has an opportunity to grow into a specialized, photography-centric adjunct to the greater Facebook experience. With Facebook serving personal home page for many web users, more visually minded people could see Instagram as their new destination.
Web Profiles will certainly change the way how people use Instagram. And with the addition of Web Profiles, the time for Instagram's intimacy is starting to see its end.