Facebook is reportedly planning to add photo filters to its mobile app in order to rival iPhone photography app Instagram.
NYT Bits reports that two Facebook engineers said that the social network tried to acquire Instagram this summer, but wasn’t successful. As a result, it could move in to create a similar service in a bid to take much of Instagram’s audience with it.
There could be up to a dozen photo filters, with some resembling Instagram’s retro photo styles. It will also introduce new filters to draw users away from Instagram.
The sources said that while the product is ready, they still need to add extra filters before it gets released.
TechCrunch reports that there are over 7m Instagram users since it launched nine months ago. There have been 150m photos uploaded to Instagram in total and 80pc have filters applied to them.