There was so much news a few weeks back about Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for a billion dollars.  I kept asking myself, why is Instagram so popular and important when I can already upload as many photos as I want, from my iPhone or Android smartphone, to Facebook and share with over 900 million other people, or any subset I choose.

It turns out, there actually is a reason – for some people.  It is not for everyone.

Here is a very quick summary of the differences.  You choose which one is better for you.

1) Facebook camera is only for sharing pictures on Facebook.  Instagram is a social network of its own.  You can share photos with other Instagram members in your group, you can create your own follow list and people can decide whether or not to follow you.  Instagram also gives you the option to easily upload your pictures to many different sites in addition to just Instagram and Facebook. You can upload your pictures to Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, and more.

2) Facebook Camera is geared more for a general audience.  Instagram is more for the artsy audience. Facebook gives you more cropping and rotation capability, but Instagram gives you much more filtering capabilities and artistic picture frames.

The ultimate choice of which to use is up to you. If you give each a try, you will notice other smaller differences.  I expect that over time, they will both start to look more like each other.  Either way, have fun keep sharing your photos with your.

Cheers,
Richard
The iTech Tutor