Change is a good thing. It signals growth and opportunity, a new chance to improve.
Or, in the case of Instagram’s features updates, another chance to tee off vast swathes of your user base.
The planned “Recommended for You” feature was tested on select users and apparently was successful enough for a wider release as Instagram has now made it a part of the normal feed for all users.
As you can imagine, this new change to the photo and video social media platform was met with the usual uproar on the web.
While most social media mavens should be familiar with similar features on other platforms, particularly Facebook’s “Explore Feed” feature, many of the complaints lodged by Instagram users thus far center around how the “Recommended for You” feature is clogging up an already confusing photo stream.
The change will use your likes and the people you follow to generate three to five suggested accounts for you to engage with should you choose to follow them.
The “Recommended for You” accounts will only show up after you have exhausted your current feed but, unlike during the testing phase for the new feature, users will not be able to disable it.
While this change is likely geared towards increasing user engagement metrics, it is not the most desired or optimal of changes that could be implemented on the platform.
Some users, for example, would like for the photos in their feed to appear in chronological order, instead of the seemingly haphazard fashion in which they are delivered now. This is not the only change planned on the horizon or currently being tested. As reported here, Instagram is also testing out a much-requested reposting feature although this, too, comes with controversy.
One of the issues plaguing the platform is stolen content or content that is reposted without attribution to the original creator. Reposting may alleviate this somewhat or exacerbate it. One of the major issues with a reposting feature is that so called “hub accounts” that collate the best from other users to build massive followings, all without crediting the original Instagram account that posted the content.
