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Instagram is changing its feed to show photos out of order
Instagram is going to show users older photos they might have missed before new ones in a major change to its feed. The change has since sparked a backlash as people fear missing out on having their photos seen.
The photo service’s users have grown accustomed to a time-ordered feed in which the latest photos appear at the top. But on Tuesday night, Instagram announced that it would begin ordering posts using an algorithm that tries to guess what the user wants to see, changing the chronological feed it has used since it was founded in 2010.
This means that when users open the Instagram app, they will see a photo from a close friend or a popular celebrity posted the previous night above a blurry snap of a former colleague’s breakfast posted the morning after, similar to the way that Facebook arranges statuses it thinks are more interesting or important at the top of its News Feed.
Instagram said that people tend to miss 70 per cent of the photos in their feed, with it becoming harder to keep up as the service explodes in popularity. Instagram has doubled users to 400 million in the last two years, meaning increasingly-crowded feeds as people follow more accounts.
In changing to an algorithmically-ordered feed, Instagram follows Twitter which made the change last month, although Twitter allows users to turn off the feature and use the traditional timeline. Instagram did not say whether or not it would allow users to keep their time-ordered feeds.
"We're testing ordered feed with a small group in the community to make sure we get it right. Some details will be determined during the testing period. We'll be able to share details when we plan to launch it more broadly," a spokesman said.
When news of Twitter making the change emerged, users revolted, with the hashtag #RIPTwitter widely used. Predictably, #RIPInstagram picked up steam after the announcement was made as some users voiced discontent. Some users feared that photos with the most likes - i.e those from the most popular Instagrammers - would be transported to the top of feeds, although Instagram said it would "take its time to get this right".
“As Instagram has grown, it’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most," the company said.
"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. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order."
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