If you are an avid Facebooker, then you probably saw this coming. Instagram feeds will start showing out of order.
By out of order I mean, you will no longer get feeds on Instagram based on chronological order. Instead, the feeds will start showing depending on their popularity and other social signals. Much like how Facebook feeds nowadays shows up.
Instagram has been one of the very few social networks that show feeds strictly on their chronological orders. Well, except for those sponsored posts that do intersperse your timeline feeds. The social network currently boasts of over 400 million users worldwide, and all of them will have to adapt to the upcoming Facebook-like way of getting their feeds on Instagram.
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Instagram will use a new algorithm that will determine the type of posts you want to see whenever you open the app. The posts you see first will be determined by your earlier interactions with the users posting those posts, or perhaps the time of day and just how popular the post has become.
Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom admits that users miss up to 70% of the posts on their feeds, and this new move is aimed at “making sure that the 30% you see is the best 30% possible.”
However, one may argue that not everyone will love not being in control of the order in which they see photos on Instagram. Indeed, both Facebook and Twitter faced a backlash when they first started interfering with the chronological order of feeds users are getting, but with time users accepted it as the reality.
You should not freak out just yet, as these are only tests Instagram is currently conducting. So you will not wake up tomorrow and found a whole new, and different experience on Instagram tomorrow. Instead, Instagram is working on fine-tuning the out of order feeds experience to ensure it causes minimum dissatisfaction while bringing you the greatest satisfaction based on the likelihood the new algorithm will bring you first the news feeds you will like the most.