Instagram update 3.0 launches with a photo map and new profiles

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Instagram has had another shiny update today, which includes Photo Maps and a new look to profiles, the explore tab and hashtag and location pages.

Although there’s a cleaner, whiter look to pages and your profile, the key feature of the 3.0 update is definitely the Photo Maps, which pin all of your geotagged snaps to a map that you can add to your profile.

Kevin Systrom, the CEO and co-founder of Instagram, explains to Mashable that the decision to add in maps was made so we can all access photos from the past with ease:

“Up until now we made it too difficult to access [those old photos], you had to scroll back pages and pages. We want to let you browse those photos in a fast and efficient manner, and we realized that the way to organize them wasn’t time, but [location] … There’s something really powerful in exploring who someone is on Instagram through a geo versus a time display.”

Before you publish the map to your profile you’re warned that crazies might be able to see it and work out where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re likely to be. Give this some thought, but not too much if you’re already geotagging everything you tweet and take a photo of anyway…

Don’t worry though, the team have put a lot of consideration into the privacy implications of the new map feature and from now on you’ll be able to decide whether a photo you’ve uploaded should be shown on the map and you can go through old photos and delete them from certain locations too, we’d start with your flat.

Becca Caddy

2 comments

  • Hate this new update. Having problems with comments and it is far too different. Most users i know hate it and i STRONGLY RECOMMEND to anyone reading this who has not yet been a victim of this update to STEER CLEAR OF IT.

    • the new layout is really a disfavor for us who use instagram for artistic purposes. experimenting with frames e.g. is now not an option since you still will get this horrible pop out frame around your pictures. wow, facebook, you really destroyed it for us who don't want to share on facebook, but on a smaller platform which used to have a great minimalistic layout. now it's just like facebook. what is the purpose of using it now?

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