But will users agree with site’s choices or method of displaying their feeds?
Like Facebook and Twitter before it, your Instagram feed may no longer show the newest posts first.
The photo-based social media site announced March 15 that it would begin testing an algorithm-based feed. This method would determine what appears at the top of a user’s feed using factors such as the relationship between the users. Users who share interaction most frequently will find their posts at the top of each other’s feeds.
“On average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their Instagram feed,” Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder and chief executive told The New York Times. “What this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible.”
Of course, that’s Instagram’s, or, rather, its algorithm’s choice of what’s best. There’s likely to be some blowback from users who don’t want the platform making decisions for them.
“I want to judge what’s important, not have some algorithm tell me what it thinks is important,” Instagram user Vickie Mulkerin told the Times.
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Many Facebook users revolted when that site dropped its reverse chronological feed in 2009, sparking the formation of Facebook-hosted anti-change groups. Twitter, which announced a similar shift in February, also got plenty of negative user feedback.
Instagram co-founder and chief technology officer Mike Krieger told the Times that 75 percent of Instagram users live outside the United States, and that users often miss overnight posts because of time differences.
While there may be some initial upset, the changes are meant to keep users engaged and checking in more frequently.
“If an algorithm can give you much more engaging content more frequently, you’ll stick around longer,” Brian Blau, a vice president at industry research firm Gartner, told the Times.
Instagram isn’t moving too quickly on the changes. The company won’t confirm how many users it will be testing the algorithm on, put says that it’s a single-digit percentage of accounts.
Systrom insists the changes will be made “slowly and deliberately.”
“It’s not like people will wake up tomorrow and have a different Instagram,” Systrom told the Times.
