Report: Twitter adding photo filters to rival Facebook's Instagram

Twitter is planning to bolster its mobile social networking applications with photo filtering and sharing features designed to rival Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) Instagram, The New York Times reports.

Citing Twitter employees who requested anonymity, the report states the forthcoming filters will mirror Instagram by enabling users to tweak their smartphone photos to look like they were shot with vintage cameras and/or film stocks. Millions of Twitter users post Instagram images to their accounts; sources add the move to introduce in-house filters is intended to appeal to so-called V.I.T.'s ("Very Important Tweeters")--i.e., celebrities, athletes and other media personalities with large followings who regularly use Instagram to document their lives, then share those images with the public. 

Instagram now boasts more than 100 million users across the iOS and Android platforms. Facebook acquired the application earlier this year--the deal, originally valued at $1 billion, ultimately closed at $715 million following Facebook's precipitous stock decline. The New York Times notes Twitter mulled acquiring its own photo-sharing app after the Facebook/Instagram deal came to light, but ultimately decided to build its own service instead.

Sources add Twitter is also exploring the addition of tools enabling users to upload and edit mobile video clips without the benefit of a third-party service like Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.

As of September, there are now 140 million Twitter users worldwide, generating 340 million tweets every day. The firm is valued at $8 billion.

For more:
- read this New York Times article

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