Facebook has been doing it and Twitter has also adapted to it a few weeks ago. It looks like the biggest social networks are switching from a chronological timeline into something that uses a special algorithm, The newest one to join this “bandwagon” is photo sharing giant Instagram as it announces that they are changing their feed to help you “see the moments you care about first”. This is of course met with mixed reactions by those who are resistant to change in their digital lives and those who welcome this new way of looking at the accounts they follow.

On one hand, you will not miss the important posts of close friends or the accounts that you frequently like, even if you’re asleep when they post them. That is, if the calculation and algorithm of Instagram is correct, in terms of the things you like or that you will most likely like. On the other hand, the idea of Instagram as a “real time” content feed will now most likely disappear.

The challenge now is that users and brands would have to have even more compelling content to be “chosen” by this mysterious thing called algorithm. It will be harder to use Instagram as a marketing channel because you’re never sure if you will show up in someone’s feed, just like what happened with brands on Facebook.

Of course, even if you don’t like this new re-arrangement of your feed, chances are you still won’t abandon Instagram because that is your go-to photo sharing service. As with all the changes that Facebook and lately, Twitter bring us, we eventually learn to adapt. So what do you think about this new algorithm, if it has arrived on your feed already?

SOURCE: Instagram

2 COMMENTS

  1. Useful for those who follow 1,000s of accounts, but not so much for those of us who follow only what we care to see. Also, if they’re going to “pull a Facebook,” then I hope they at least add the option to sort the feed by “most recent” so we can at least still have the old view as well.

  2. I hate this stupid decision, on all the products. Now I’m having trouble seeing the pictures & comments.

    This arrogant dictation of what I see is completely bogus. There must be something that is driving more revenue into the greedy pockets of these execs.

    I’ve had it with out of control idiots who disrespect their own customers by acting like they know more than we do about what order we want to see posts.

    At least they could give the user a choice in the matter. They are too arrogant to think that customers actually know what they want.

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