While we don’t accept advertising, we have no problems with celebrities who sell out. Yet we got some extra insight into how sponsored Instagram posts by celebrities happen as model and actress Naomi Campbell, or someone working for her, just slapped the whole e-mail from a brand representative in the caption field on Instagram. [More]
Non-Chronological Instagram Feeds Are Coming Whether You Like It Or Not
By 6.3.16
It doesn’t matter whether you’re happy about it or not: Instagram is switching your feed to an algorithmic one, showing you new posts in the order that the service believes you’ll like them. Users are not super thrilled about this, but Instagram tried to assure users that we’ll like it, even if we think we won’t. [More]
This Is How You Fail At Sponsored Social Media Posts
By 5.20.16
We’ve written in the past about how it’s illegal not to disclose when you’re getting paid to post about a product on social media like. There was nothing under-the-radar about a recent sponsored Instagram photo reality TV person Scott Disick posted, however. [More]
Instagram Put A Lot Of Thought Into Their New App Icon
By 5.11.16
When you open an app on your mobile phone or tablet, you do so by looking for and gently tapping on its icon. If you use a given app frequently, it can be disorienting to have its icon change. Today Instagram, the super-popular app that you use to browse photos of your friends’ brunches, their cats, and their cats’ brunches, changed their logo and app icon. They took a lot of care to make sure that the design is fresh, but familiar enough that it’s instantly recognizable. [More]
Instagram’s New Ads Will Target Shoppers Who Look At Stuff Online But Don’t Buy It
By 5.10.16
One of the ways I save myself money when shopping online is pretty simple: I put a bunch of stuff in my online cart that I want, then immediately close the window and don’t return. Facebook is going after people like me with its rollout of dynamic ads on Instagram, which will be targeted at shoppers who browse online but don’t pull the trigger when it comes to actually buying items. [More]
10-Year-Old Receives $10K Facebook Bug Bounty For Finding Instagram Comment Flaw
By 5.4.16
Since Facebook launched its bug bounty program in 2011, the social media company has divvied up more than $4.3 million, including the $10,000 recently awarded to a 10-year-old who found a vulnerability in Facebook-owned Instagram. [More]
Even Anonymous Users Can Be Identified With Only Two Pieces Of Data From Social Media Apps
By 4.14.16
If you think you’re evading the constantly tracking eye of the Internet by using throw-away email addresses and obscure screen names to register your social media accounts and other apps, you’re probably wrong. A new study demonstrates how simple it can be to correctly identify someone using otherwise anonymous data. [More]
Instagram Videos Can Now Be Up To A Minute Long
By 3.30.16
If you’ve been wishing for longer videos of cute cats, dogs, and kids saying the darndest things on Instagram, the social media gods have heard your prayers. Instagram users will now be able to post videos that are up to one minute long, adding 45 seconds to the previous video length limits. [More]
Instagram Revamps Timeline, Will Show Photos By Relevance
By 3.16.16
Instagram is taking a page straight out of its big brother Facebook’s playbook: reconfiguring its timeline to show posts that are most relevant to them first, not those that happened just moments ago. [More]
Instagram Adding Two-Factor Authentication To Better Protect User Accounts
By 2.17.16
While Instagram may not have endured the same high-profile, embarrassing hacks that Twitter experienced in the past, the photo-sharing site is taking a page from the social media service — and other tech, networking, and retail companies — by enabling two-factor authentication for user accounts. [More]
Sorry, Person Named Chanel, You Can’t Use Your First Name As An Instagram Handle
By 1.6.16
When you’re an early adopter of a website, that means you have your pick of usernames. A young lady in Canada registered for Instagram early on, before Facebook acquired the company. Her username was her real first name: Chanel. Eventually, brands began to use the service, and that’s when the fashion house of the same name found that someone had already registered @chanel. Now no one is using that ID. Why? [More]
Instagram Putting The Kibosh On Many Third-Party Apps In Wake Of Password Thefts
By 11.18.15
Instagram is tightening its grip on which unofficial apps it will suffer to live, after it was revealed that one third-party app was harvesting users’ passwords. [More]
Apple, Google Pull Unofficial Instagram App That Harvests Usernames And Passwords
By 11.11.15
In yet another example of why unofficial apps aren’t always to be trusted, Apple and Google have yanked an app from their app stores that was supposed to let users know who was viewing their profiles. That’s not a thing, and a developer says that the app instead acted as malware, secretly collecting usernames and passwords and using them to post spam to users’ accounts. [More]
Instagram Decides It’s Not Hip To Only Be Square, Will Now Allow Rectangular Images & Videos
By 8.27.15
If you’ve ever had to take a screenshot of a rectangular photo on your phone just so you could crop it into a square to post on Instagram, you’ll be glad to hear this news: the photo-sharing app announced Thursday that it’ll now allow landscape and portrait photos and videos instead of only square-shaped media. [More]
Instagram Is Sorry For Taking Account Away From User, Giving It To Famous Soccer Star
By 7.20.15
Though it’s not uncommon to find squatters camped out on the accounts of famous people on social media sites like Instagram and Twitter, what happens if you’re a real person with a real social media presence, and you just happen to share a name with a celebrity? You might just get the boot, at least until you can plead your case. [More]
Instagram Is Down, People Forced To Look At Own Lunches
By 7.16.15
Time to brace ourselves, Internet: image-sharing site Instagram is down. While as of right now you can still view pictures and feeds directly, users can’t log in if they aren’t already logged in, and can’t like or comment on photos if they are logged in. Update: Instagram is working again: you’ll be able to browse your friends’ farmer’s market hauls with no problem. [More]
Advertisers Can Now Add Action Buttons Like “Shop Now” To Instagram Ads
By 6.2.15
The days of an ad-free Instagram are long gone, lost in the pre-Facebook ownership days, so it might be no surprise that the photo-and-video-sharing social media app will now feature ads that let viewers take action beyond liking or commenting on them. [More]
Chili’s Gave Its Food A Makeover So Customers Will Post Photos Of It On Social Media
By 5.15.15
Set a good-looking plate of food in front of someone these days and FWIP! Out come the smartphones to take a photo of the culinary creation and post it on social media for all to see and envy. But apparently Chili’s wasn’t feeling like the prettiest girl at the ball, so to get more Instagram love, it changed up how it presents its food. [More]
