One Flew the Cuckoo's Nest: Instagram Ends Integration with Twitter

In the latest social media battle, Instagram has switched off their integration with 'Twitter Cards', the app used to display multimedia within tweets - meaning we're no longer treated to twitterfeeds enhanced by beautiful photography (albeit mostly of cats and food).

So why the move back to 140 characters, a link and strangely cropped images? Speaking at Le Web '12 last week, Kevin Systrom, Instagram's founder and CEO, said the decision was "an evolution of where we want links to our content to go."

"We want to direct users to where the content lives originally. Where do you you go to interact with [an Instagram] image? We want that to be instagram.com because thats a better user experience." 

With Twitter recently announcing that they'd be introducing their own image filters, will we see Instagram user numbers drop in favour for using an app that will make it easier to share your creations?

And will the Twitter filters be able to live up to Instagram's own? The app is currently in testing, which may well explain the many black and white images popping up on chariman, Jack Dorsey's feed.

Either way, we're likely to find out very soon - it's said the filters will be released in time for Christmas, just in time for everyone to snap & share their new goodies.

Photo (cc) Koka S