The queue between Instagram and Facebook is getting very thin...
A great algorithmic feed. Live online video. A seemingly unquenchable being thirsty to copy Snapchat. Audio like an software you know? You'd be pardoned for thinking the answer was Facebook, though, is actually not.
Instagram's the software you are considering, and it's recently been steadily moving closer to Facebook (which owns Instagram) in recent months.
And on Tuesday, the company took the next step in that particular way, and announced it was adding the ability to "like" comments within content.
While Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom billed it as a way to "encourage positivity" on the system, for many, the move's just the latest in a series of ways Instagram is somewhat more and more often resembling Facebook.
About the surface, being able to "like" comments may seem to be like a tiny change, but it's the one which shows just how much the business has moved away from its photo-first origins in the last half a year.
Gowns troubling to many in long run Instagram users attracted to the iphone app precisely because it was so different from Facebook.
Historically, Instagram has always been more about capturing a moment--and making beautiful photos--more than sharing everything you do that day, or having long-ranging discussions in a comments thread. Now, that era's over. Sure, there are still plenty of well-composed photographs and adorable cat videos and #tbt posts be found, but increasingly, that type of material is becoming a sole component in Instagram's bucket, which is being increasingly filled with other features, built on other platforms.
By putting a more robust emphasis on commenting, Instagram's doing more than signaling its desire for users to engage the other person more. Recharging options opening the door for other updates within the field of commenting--like ranked comments, which could place comments with additional wants at the top of a thread (Instagram says it doesn't intend to do this yet, but the feature could easily be implemented in a later update).
Consider some of Instagram's most current changes, which have also recently been several of the app's most significant changes yet.
Summer 2016: Instagram's long-rumored computer timeline, which orders content based on "what you care about" rather than chronology, finally comes away. Users react badly.
July 2016: In a bet to compete with Snapchat, Instagram launches Stories, which is essentially a copy of the Snapchat feature of the same name. Users, again, say they hate it.
November 2016: Live video comes to Instagram with a perspective: ephemerality, meaning they go away as soon as the broadcast has ended. The software also adds ephemeral messages to Instagram Direct.
Dec 2016: Instagram comments get the Facebook treatment.
Used together, it's clear Instagram's making a concerted efforts to make its network more like Facebook. These is a very carefully designed feature to keep you in Instagram iphone app for longer periods of time, and encourage the alternatives of conversation and showing more frequently found on Facebook or myspace than Instagram.
Why? To boost engagement, of course. Though the app's progress has been fairly ridiculous, given that it's only been with us for six years (and passed the five-hundred million user mark this year), it still has significantly fewer users than Facebook or WhatsApp. And its engagement is smaller still when compared to other Facebook apps.
Consider: of 500 million regular monthly Instagram users, more than 300 million of them use the software daily, according to stats the company announced in Summer prior to the release of Stories. An even smaller percentage of those 300 million users post to Instagram daily. The iphone app sees, usually, "more than 95 million" photography and video posts a day, the company said at the moment.
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