Instagram becomes more like Facebook with ‘Web profiles’

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app for smartphones, announced Monday that it is creating a way for users to show off their Instagram photos on a Web page.

Users of the Facebook-owned social network will have a profile page where all their shared Instagram pictures will be available for viewing. Users can find their profiles by going to “instagram.com/” followed by their username.

Instagram said some profiles will go live as early as today while the rest will be up before the week ends.

The social network announced the news in a blog post Monday, which included links to various profiles that are already live, including Nike‘s, as you can see above.

The new profiles include users’ default pictures as well as their bio descriptions. There is also a “Follow” button along with information on how many pictures a user has taken, how many people that user follows and how many followers that user has.

Above the profile picture are seven pictures. One of the images is larger than the rest, and every few seconds, one of the images will rotate and switch out with a different picture.

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Below the profile picture are rows of containing users’ images. If you scroll down, more pictures come up. And just as users could before Monday’s announcement, when you open an image, you can “Like” the photo or comment on it.

If your profile isn’t already live, as mine isn’t, you will instead be directed to a page that says “This profile will be available soon” along with more information about Web profiles.

One thing to note about new Web profiles is that unless you have set your pictures to private, all your images will be public on the Web.

“You do not have to be an Instagram user to view a public user’s profile on the web,” Instagram said in its blog post.

If your profile is private, the social network says only logged-in users that you’ve allowed to follow you will be able to see your pictures.

As for uploading photos to the social network from the Web, Instagram said users will still be unable to do that.

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