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7:15 a.m. | Updated Adding comment from Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive.
Welcome to the Photo Wars.
Instagram on Wednesday disabled the ability for Twitter to properly display Instagram photos on its Web site and in its applications. The move escalates tensions between the two companies, which were once friends in the battle against Facebook but have now become direct competitors.
In a status update on Twitter’s Web site, the company said Instagram had disabled its integration with Twitter cards, which are used to display images and content within Twitter messages.
“Users are experiencing issues with viewing Instagram photos on Twitter,” the post said. “This is due to Instagram disabling its Twitter cards integration, and as a result, photos are being displayed using a pre-cards experience.”
Speaking at the LeWeb technology conference, Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive, confirmed that the company has removed the ability to send pictures to Twitter, and plans to completely cut off embedding pictures on the Twitter Web site.
“We’ve decided that right now, what makes sense, is to direct our users to the Instagram Web site,” Mr. Systrom said, noting that Instagram images will soon no longer be visible on Twitter. “Obviously things change as a company evolves.”
Mr. Systrom did not say when images will cesase to show up on the site.
Instagram users will still be able to generate a tweet on Twitter when they post a photo. But when someone clicks on the Instagram link in those tweets, they will be taken out of the Twitter site or app and directed to Instagram’s site to view it.
Until now, if someone posted a photo on Instagram and also shared it with their Twitter followers, a click on the “View Photo” link on Twitter’s site would summon it right on the same page.
Mr. Systrom said that photos posted through other sites and services, including Facebook, Tumblr and Foursquare, will not be affected.
For now, Instagram photos appear incorrectly on Twitter, sometimes showing up cropped or off center. It is unclear if Instagram will completely disable the ability for Twitter to show pictures on its Web site.
Photo sharing continues to be a volatile battleground for social networking services, and given the potential advertising dollars at stake, the tensions will likely continue to grow.
Although Instagram and Twitter worked closely together during Instagram’s early days, relations between the two companies have soured since the Facebook acquisition.
Now the companies are competing on a number of fronts for consumer eyeballs. Last month Instagram, which had been almost entirely app-based, began rolling out its own Web-centric pages for its 100 million registered users. And Twitter is expected to introduce photo filters to its mobile applications, much like the ones Instagram offers.
When the Facebook acquisition of Instagram closed, Instagram said in a blog post that the deal “means we can now work together to evolve and build a better Instagram for everyone.”
It looks like “everyone” doesn’t include Twitter.