Ever since Facebook acquired Instagram for 1 Billion dollars, comedians have had a field day, with Facebook having to bear the brunt of mad jokes like the one line zinger "why did Facebook pay 1 Billion dollars for Instagram when they could have downloaded it for free"?But confusing is the fact that Instagram is left to stand alone and continue it's path of development as opposed to being integrated into Facebook. So instead Facebook launches it's fourth App, Facebook Camera, which draws a lot of inspiration from Instagram.
Facebook Camera is a mobile photo sharing App that allows you to quickly share take photos, apply a filter from a selection of Fifteen choices, anything from a neon touch to Black and White. The App is built for the iPhone and iTouch and while you can download it for the iPad, it is not optimized to take advantage of the retina display on the iPad.
So why will Facebook buy Instagram for 1 Billion dollars only to duplicate the same service in a later offering, rebranding it as Facebook Camera? Well the obvious reason is the wisdom in removing your competition from the battle field, one acquisition at a time in a quest to obtain market dominance and continued profitability. Secondly, Facebook is responding to new market demand for a photo sharing platform that employs filters and other cool effects that allows the user to personalize their pictures and add a touch of creativity. Third, Apple for proprietary and privacy reasons is not offering a smooth Facebook integration into the iOS platform, something that Apple has done with twitter. So clearly Facebook is circumventing Apple's controlling efforts by coming up with it's own solution to allow the user to quickly acquire, beautify and share pictures.
Usually when the elephants fight, it's the grass that suffer, but in this case I applaud Facebook for providing a Photo App solution to simplify the process of sharing Photos to Facebook.
The Facebook Camera App has a simple user interface that allows you to acquire a picture, rotate it, and apply a filter. The rotate feature is a nice touch because nothing is more annoying than those who post their pictures wrong side up. Now once you have taken a bunch of pictures you can select up to Thirty of them and quickly publish to Facebook.
I should mention that Facebook Camera is no Instagram but it is certainly worth taking a look. I downloaded and tried it out yesterday. Have you downloaded it yet, or will you even bother?
There is no word yet if Facebook is developing the same App for the Android Platform.
You can get Instagram here and Facebook Camera here
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