Even though the Facebook-owned company only has good intentions in mind, the community is far from ecstatic about the upcoming update. That means a shot taken a minute ago by a user you rarely interact with has a greater chance of appearing way down your feed.
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An unspecified percentage (under 10 percent) will see the test algorithm.
Following the news a new hashtag was trending: #RIPInstagram, which was filled with users sharing their anger towards the change and while thousands of users were already sharing their thoughts online, Instagram user Sarah Heard chose to take it one step further with a Change.org petition calling for Instagram to stop the changes. “And when your best friend posts a photo of her new puppy, you won’t miss it”.
Instagram is rolling out a new personalised algorithm that will change the order of photos and videos in users’ feeds.
We don’t know for sure, but it sounds like Instagram is leaning toward making the change mandatory for all users.
Instagram’s announcement indicates that the switch won’t be for a few months, which seems a bit odd to be announcing it so soon.
Instagram Systrom reassures that this is going to be a slow and gradual change. Since Instagram will have control over what you see, it could bump up companies’ advertisement posts. Instagram claims that people currently miss out on the majority of content in their feeds and is now aiming to improve the experience and show the moments that users “will care about the most”.
“The moment when an Instagram ad starts looking like a banner, the “unfollows” will come”, Larry Lac, director of social media marketing at Havas Worldwide told Adweek.
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“The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post“. According to Instagram, the update will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and give us the images that are most interesting to us at the top, then follow with the rest of the posts in chronological order.
