Now that Instagram has reached a considerable early adopter base (more than 4 million users in 7 months since its launch), there's a good question of how/when brands can jump in. (Not that they have to). Truth to be told, some brands are already there, in a very obvious way - they're having their own streams, with their own photos. But what if, instead, they came up with filters for everyone's photos?
For example, the image above screams "Coca-Cola" to me. Currently, Instagram offers only "the most popular" filter. The Barbarian Group created Screenstagram, which combines popular & your friends' photos. Now, any brand can create something like this and display it wherever they want. It's just another way to navigate through the bunch of users' uploads. Now, why woud people care about branded filters? First, if brands like to claim that they want to "own" a category of human experience (running, cooking, fashion, grocieries, going out, extreme sports...), this is one simple way to do it. And even simpler than this, maybe they manage to filter some really good content that people just simply wouldn't come across otherwise.
I found this screengrab here.
