instagram update!

In a bid to capture more location data from its users, the latest version of Instagram's photo-sharing app has introduced a new feature called Photo Maps, a kind of digital photo album organized according to where in the world snapshots were taken.

"The vision is to make geo-data more prevalent and have users produce more of this data," said Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, whose company Facebook agreed to purchase for $1 billion. "We want 90 percent of photos to be geo-tagged because we can do more powerful things with that data."

The chronological feed of photos shown on Instagram users' profiles will be supplemented with an interactive map, a.k.a. the Photo Map, that highlights where each image was taken, right down to a specific neighborhood or even venue, if a user has chosen to geo-tag his or her picture. Any previously uploaded pictures that were tagged with location information can be added to this "geographic" album.

Photo Maps offers a little something for everyone. Instagrammers who post location information with their snapshots are rewarded with a more beautiful and orderly way of organizing their images. Though Instagram has always allowed users to geo-tag photos, with Photo Maps, the app has finally given them an incentive to do so. (via)