Anyone who shares a link to an image on Twitter will automatically see the image in the tweet. Except for photos from Instagram: then for years only the link could be seen, without a photo. That restriction was once deliberately imposed by Instagram after the two companies got into a fight. Since Wednesday is that limitation over?. “They said it would never happen,” Instagram writes.
That may sound exaggerated, but the relationship between Instagram and Twitter was dead and buried for years. It all started in 2010 when Instagram and Twitter were still young companies, and Twitter didn’t have its own way of showing photos. Instagram quickly became one of the most popular ways to share photos via Twitter, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was also a fan.
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Tweet sparked relationship again
Dorsey wanted to take over Instagram, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered more money in 2012 with $ 715 million. Dorsey was angry and prevented Instagram users from easily finding their friends on Twitter. Instagram responded by no longer showing photos in tweets.
And so it remained for nine years, until Twitter announced at the beginning of this year that it would now show YouTube videos in tweets. The Verge journalist Casey Newton said on Twitter: “just Instagram photos for now”. “Takes two to tango“, responded Twitter product head Kayvon Beykpour. Instagram head Adam Mosseri placed there’s a gif of a dancing man underneath.
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Garden party with wine and pizza
After that it was quiet for months, but that tango apparently came, Beykpour tells The Verge. Mosseri and Beykpour agreed, eventually got together over a pizza dinner with wine in a mutual acquaintance’s garden and talked it out.
The rest is history. A few months passed, and now Instagram photos in tweets have been reinstated. In the end it was mainly a matter of priorities. Instagram CEO Mosseri decided to create a team for simple functions without great strategic importance, which are nice for users. Another result of that team is, for example, the link sticker, allowing anyone to post a link in their Stories.
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