Instagram is going to change, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Faced with the reactions and criticisms of users who do not copy the decline of the photo in favor of the video, the reaction of the social network Méta was expected. The head of the application, Adam Moseri, spoke in a video published on Twitter on July 26. It is meant to be reassuring at first. “We will continue to welcome photos on the platform. It’s part of our heritage. I love them and you too“. But quickly, he explains the parameters of the inevitable change.I have to be honest. I think the future of Instagram will be built with more and more videos“.
In recent weeks, the feed of the photo-based platform has featured more and more videos, rather short ones called “Reels:“. Testing phase before completely transforming the social network.
Everything for the video
The executive believes that even when no changes were made to the platform, video on Instagram was naturally more and more used, consumed and shared by users. All videos under 15 minutes will also be converted to Reels, meaning almost all video content.
Adam Moseri also talks about content recommendations, which are more and more in the main topic. “We want you to discover things you didn’t even know existed.”. Before mentioning. “If you don’t like the content, it’s because we misclassified the content. You can remove content you don’t like or opt out of any offer for a month. But we will continue to improve the recommendations.”. According to the boss, a choice motivated by a desire to help creators reach a wider audience, especially smaller creators.
Internet users have already seen the first changes, displeased by losing the predominance of their friends’ photos. Influencer sisters Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian posted a post earlier this week stating: “So that Instagram becomes Instagram again. Stop trying to be like TikTok, I just want to see my friends’ cute pictures”. Signed post “Regards to all”. These posts have garnered over 1.5 million likes. A petition has since been posted on Change.org and has garnered nearly 200,000 signatures.
Users continued to express their displeasure in response to Adam Mosseri’s video. “Why don’t you ever listen to us?”runs influential. “We don’t want to make Adam videos”, adds another. To this he answers.I hear a lot of people asking their friends to see more in their feed. I’d like to see more friend-related content in the feed, but the reality is that most photos and videos of friends are sharing stories or personal messages.”
The fact that Photos are now less prominent than Reels may explain this progressive disengagement from photo publishing. In short, Adam Moser listens, but is unlikely to change his model.
To compete with TikTok, Meta wants to focus on short videos that take up the entire screen, like the Chinese social network. Advertising and featured content now take up a large portion of Instagram’s mainstream feed; at least 30% of messages will not be requested by the user.
A similar model is adopted by the Facebook social network, where recommended videos will appear in the topic. This would mean the end of social networks based on circle of friends in favor of time spent watching entertainment video content powered by algorithms.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.