Instagram Revamps Timeline, Will Show Photos By Relevance

Image courtesy of (Instagram)

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. 

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced the change on its blog Tuesday, noting that the new timeline setup was created in order to allow users to better keep up with the people they care about.

Currently, the service estimates that most users miss about 70% of the content posted in their feed.

“As Instagram has grown, it’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share,” the company said. “This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most.”

The new photo and video order, which will use a similar algorithm to Facebook’s, will be based on users’ 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,” Instagram says.

For example, the company says, if a user’s favorite musician posts a photo or video from his recent concert, that content will be waiting at the top of their feed no matter how many accounts they follow or what time zone they live in.

“We’re going to take time to get this right and listen to your feedback along the way,” Instagram says. “You’ll see this new experience in the coming months.”

[via The Chicago Tribune]

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