Let the social media Cola Wars begin

Now it's harder than ever to send your cat/food/feet/selfie/airplane/old sign/cloud photos to Twitter via Instagram. Because Facebook owns Instagram. So they'd rather you not send your shit to a competitor's site. So boom. No more integration without third party apps.

Oh, whoa that sounds like competitiveness to me. I thought sharing was caring and the internet was a wide open freebie? Why are we surprised by this? Remember when the Like button started showing up on every last page on the web? It was Facebook's way of saying "Okay we know you have to visit other pages, but don't forget about us." Now Facebook is saying "Screw those other pages. All your eyeballs belong to us."

If you end up spending time on Twitter (or Myspace, if anyone ever did that) it means you aren't spending time on Facebook, and then you aren't seeing the ads which is the only way Facebook can stay profitable and keep its shareholders profitable too. And seeing as how Facebook closed at $27.71 at the news, the shareholders are quite happy.

This from the linked article above:

Many analysts have posited that Facebook's privacy change is the first step in monetizing Instagram, offering ads on the site and mobile app, as it does with its own offerings. Forcing Twitter users to go to the Instagram website or mobile app in order to see a photo would help in any advertising effort, giving Facebook more "eyeballs," viewers for whom advertisers pay.

All you social media nerds complaining that brands are starting to overtake your beloved Instagram? Guess what, bitches? It's about to get a whole lot worse. Ads pay for the site. You don't like it, too bad.

This case is unique though as the Facebook/Twitter relationship is quickly becoming like Coke and Pepsi wars. Except imagine if Facebook was Coke, standing in front of a Pepsi machine with a baseball bat, looking at you with a threat in its eyes if you dare choose to visit Pepsi.

Instagram and its daddy Facebook don't want you on Twitter. And you, dear user, who have grown accustomed to all three, are now stuck in the middle of a stupid war to get your eyeballs on ads you care bupkis about. It's nice to feel wanted, isn't it? Welcome to the money-go-round. Last stop: deleting your profile.

Okay, not really.

There is a way (for now) to bypass it, via your phone settings.

We at Adland are bigger fans of this service called If This, Then That. You attach your photos (or whatever) on one site (if this) add a hashtag, and send it to the other site you'd like it to show up (then that.)

Try it now before someone buys it up.

Update: According to Techcrunch the twitter button's been turned back on.

For the record, mine never left. But then they always roll out things in segments so I suppose they could take them away in segments, too. So I don't know if it's power to the people just yet or not. Maybe if I have any interest left, I'll stay tuned...