Coca-Cola is taking on Instagram, Flickr et al with its new photo-sharing service / social network Happy Places.

Happy Places consists of a bespoke website, happyplaces.com (currently inactive), and a free iOS app, which went live on the App Store yesterday.

Users are encouraged to create Happy Places profiles, where they can share photos with their friends (of “happy moments”, naturally). They can also view other users’ pics, make comments and follow hashtags (like #music, #joy and #girlfriends) to be informed when other users have uploaded photos that fit in with these “moments”.

There is, of course, no lack of photo-sharing services on the current market and the absence of Instagram-esque filters on Happy Places might mean it is at a disadvantage when compared to its competitors.

That said, Coke’s mighty marketing muscle and impressive global reach means that it has the ability to reach out to whole new audiences that most photo-sharing services could never even dream of.