AllThingsD reported the news, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The move comes right after Twitter’s fast-growing competitor Instagram made changes to its photo display functionality, which broke Twitter’s ability to show Instagram photos properly inside the Twitter stream. Instagram is owned by Facebook, a fierce competitor to Twitter when it comes to courting people sharing their images.

The Instagram move was a blow to Twitter, because many people, especially younger users, are increasingly turning to Instagram to share and display their favorite photos. And if they can’t find them on Twitter, they’ll rely more on Facebook, which can show the photos, or on their Instagram accounts directly. Indeed, Instagram links shared on Twitter are now directing people over to the Instagram site.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey is apparently already testing the feature, posting black and white photos of his Square employees

The holiday season is a big one for photos, because it’s a time when people go home and take a lot more photos of family and friends.

Also, Google just released robust updates Thursday to its own photo-editing and filter app, Snapseed. That app, now available on both Android and iOS, offers auto correct and filters, and lets you selectively adjust photo elements such as focus, brightness, saturation, contrast, and white balance. It also offers one-click sharing to Google’s social network, Google +.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google today released an Android version of the sophisticated photo-editing application Snapseed, a product it picked up in its acquisition of photography software developer Nik Software. The company also updated the Snapsneed app for iOS to make it free.

Snapseed’s mobile application features auto correct and filters, just like Facebook-owned Instagram, but is more robust in the photo-editing department and not a social network for following friends’ or celebrities’ captures. The application won last year’s Apple’s iPad app of the year award.

Snapseed for Android, released Thursday, comes with all the same goodies previously found on iOS, including the ability to selectively adjust photo elements such as focus, brightness, saturation, contrast, and white balance. Both the newly free iOS app and the brand-new Android app come with one-click sharing to Google+, of course.

The releases are all about enhancing Google’s position in the hierarchy of places to consume and share digital photography. Facebook may be top destination for photo-sharing, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, but the company seems to think it can, with Snapseed’s help, make its Google+ social network the preferred destination for rich and beautiful images.

Google+ touts 135 million people active in the stream. The service also now has a groups feature called Google+ Communities.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google bought “photography first” mobile app developer Nik Software today, meaning it now owns Instagram competitor Snapseed. But while Snapseed gives Google those sepia filters, it also provides an arsenal of photography apps the company can use for its social network, Google+.

Snapseed raises eyebrows because it’s a competitor to Instagram, which Facebook bought for $1 billion in April. Instagram is wildly popular and was already showing signs of its dominance when Facebook picked it up. At the time Instagram had roughly 30 million users. Today, it has over 100 million users, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The social network wrapped up the deal last week after the Federal Trade Commission OK’d it, which may be putting pressure on Google to compete.

Snapseed, of course, doesn’t have the following or fame of Instagram. It’s more likely that Google wants Nik Software, which creates a number of different photography apps, to add functionality to Google+.

While we often push Google+ off to the side as “Google’s attempt to do a social network,” photographers have actually flocked to the site. Google+ displays photos in a lightbox and did so before Facebook switched to the feature, which displays photos in a larger format, separated from the rest of the content on the screen. Indeed, photographer Thomas Hawk even created a list of the “1,500 Kickass Photographers on Google+” (after which Facebook contacted Hawk to talk about what it could do for photographers).

Nik Software’s other apps could be used to improve the photo features of the Google+ Android and iOS apps.

Image via Snapseed; hat tip The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Photography software developer Nik Software will soon release its popular Snapseed photo-editing application for Mac and select Android tablets.

Snapseed, originally released for iPhone and iPad, offers a smattering of photo-editing features and creative enhancements that help hobby photographers capture, edit, transform and share their photos — no heavy-lifting or Photoshop skills required. The application has been lauded for its stylish interface and professional-grade quality, and even took home Apple’s coveted iPad app of the year award for 2011.

The new Snapseed for Mac and Snapseed for Android tablets applications will introduce those sophisticated photo-editing features to more audiences. Both will include the same core elements — one-touch auto correct, tilt-shift, filters, textures and vintage films for retro styling — made popular by the original iOS apps.

Nik Software announced the coming-soon apps at CES Tuesday. The Mac app will retail for $19.99 on the Mac App Store and will be compatible with Mac OS 10.6.8 and later. The Android version will (unfortunately) only work on Nvidia Tegra-powered tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich, and will cost $4.99. Both applications are slated for early 2012 release.

For more news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.