Here is something that is a long time coming! Instagram Users (that includes myself) had been since the beginning, suggesting, asking, later on begging(!) the Instagram Team to create some sort of Web Profile where we could show off our Instagram photos to others without needing to use the mobile app.
2 years later, and here it is, the shiny and new web profile has finally arrived.

Maybe this was one of the good side-effect of Instagram being acquired by Facebook, either from finances or resources point of view, or both. It is probably not entirely surprising then, as some keen-eyed observers also pointed out, that this new Instagram profile has some passing resemblance with, or even maybe influence from, the new Facebook Timeline.

The profile header has a big collage/tiles of some of the photos from the user’s photo stream. Some of the tiles seem to be dynamically changing, showing multiple photo in succession, like a running presentation.

Underneath the profile’s banner is the detailed info of the user profile itself, i.e. username, bio, photos/followers/followings count, the usual.

And then below that, you can see the photo stream belongs to that user profile, arranged in the usual tile format that we are all familiar with, showing thumbnails of individual photos. Clicking on one of the thumbnail will launch the photo’s lightbox where people can like the photo, read/add comments, and probably more importantly to follow the user.

The only thing that we cannot do, still, is to upload photo. This has been a constraint that Instagram team had imposed since the beginning, and one principle that they are still not willing to give up.

In any case, for Instagram users, it is better late than never. I personally welcome my new profile, which means that I don’t need to go via third-party websites like webstagram or statigram just to tell people my Instagram profile and photos.