Instagram’s End

Instagram, the popular mobile photo sharing service, has finally added full web profiles. You can now see a user’s full Instagram feed, not just individual photos, on any web browser. The image above, is taken from my own Instagram profile page.

I’m starting to wonder if this is the beginning of the end of my relationship with Instagram. Will Instagram soon allow uploading of images via web browsers and if they do that, how will the service change? This will probably fuel more growth for Instagram, turning into the next Flickr perhaps, while providing keen competition for Pinterest, G+ and Twitter’s much anticipated photo service.

While I still enjoy Instagram, I have no interest in showcasing my non-mobile photography on there. In fact, I’ve totally gone off social photography in general for serious work, because of the lack of control over the visual style and the way sites like Flickr, 500px and G+ seem to encourage short term validation via likes, rankings and comments.

Instagram was always (for me) about fun, experimentation and capturing the moment. But, this move forces Instagram’s users into curation mode. When you see you photos in a gallery it demands a different mindset. For me, this makes my relationship with Instagram harder to manage and more complex. And, I’m never a fan of ambiguous relationships!

I got the chance to discuss some of this stuff on the SocialCurrents online show, with Jay Oatway, and his guests, If this stuff interests you, then check out today’s SocialCurrents episode at , where I had a chance to chat about Instagram and social photography with Jay Oatway, Ali Bullock, Andrew Leyden, & Tyson Wheatley.

The conversation was pretty fluid and I enjoyed the different perspectives on Instagram and social photography. There was a broad range of views on Instagram’s value, its true function and the platform’s potential future.

One thing I am pretty sure of is this – the time is ripe for a startup to create a new platform that does what Instagram did so well, as a mobile-only, in the moment, fun social photography platform.