UPDATED 13:03 EDT / DECEMBER 10 2012

Breaking Analysis: Instagram Terminates Twitter Support, Google et al. Attempts to Stifle Alice Corp

Last Wednesday, Instagram disabled the ability for Twitter to properly display Instagram photos on the Twitter site and within Twitter applications. According to All Things D, as of Sunday, Instagram pulled the plug completely on Twitter card support. Instagram’s CEO, Kevin Systrom, had announced last week that they would be removing this ability to embed pictures on the Twitter website, but did not say when. Apparently this has happened sooner rather than later. SiliconANGLE NewsDesk Editor, Kristen Nicole, expressed surprise to this rapid follow-through by Instagram.

When Instagram disabled the Twitter card support last week, the ability to view photos on Twitter was still there, although they were being displayed incorrectly. Kristen Nicole explained what’s left between Twitter and Instagram. She said, “It seems like those Instagram photos are not going to appear on your Twitter stream. You can still share links to your Instagram photos . . . so those links will be able to redirect to wherever the Instagram photo is being posted.”

When asked whether she thought Twitter users would continue to tweet out links to their pictures on Instagram or if they might seek an alternative photo integration app, Kristen Nicole speculated that both options are viable ones, depending on the user’s goals in sharing their media. She mentioned to viewers that there is a list of alternatives to Instagram for sharing photos on Twitter available on SiliconANGLE.

It seems as though things just keep getting worse for Twitter. According to Sky News, Twitter has been fined after failing to file its UK corporate accounts. The company was due to report its annual accounts no later than September but has still not done so, per Companies House, which is the UK Registrar of Companies.  It’s understood that these reports are used as a basis for tax filings, however Kristen Nicole stated that there is no indication of tax evasion at this point. Twitter has not yet commented on why the accounting reports are late.

Facebook, Google, Zynga and a number of other tech giants filed an amicus brief with the U.S. State Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last Friday, in an attempt to show their support against a number of wide-ranging patent claims in a case between two financial companies, CLS Bank and Alice Corp. In a nutshell, Alice Corp wants to patent a way of closing financial transactions, but the method is so broad that the tech companies are simply trying to protect their own future interests and avoid any possible patent
infringement suits later on, should their own technologies spill over into this particular patent area.  Kristen Nicole believes that the amicus brief could have some influence on the court, noting that both Google and Facebook have been involved in a number of these similar situations. See the entire segment with Kristin Feledy and Kristen Nicole on the Morning NewsDesk Show.


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