THE RETURN OF THE OLD INSTAGRAM
You might have seen the Instagram post that has been circling the internet this past week, a petition started by Tati Bruening @illumitati to ‘Make Instagram Instagram again.’ Since the petition went live, it has gained a whopping 290,107 signatures, with the Instagram post reaching over 2.2 million likes and a share from Kylie Jenner.
The petition requested that a few changes were made to the application:
1. Bring back chronological timelines!
2. Stop trying to be TikTok!
3. An algorithm that favours photos!
4. A platform that listens to creators!
The overall goal of the movement was to bring attention to what consumers want from the app, the popularity of the post has undoubtedly sparked conversation around the recent changes made by Meta.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has posted a video on Twitter titled "There’s a lot happening on Instagram right now" where he explains that “we’re hearing a lot of concerns from you all” without directly referring to the petition posted by Tati.
So, what can we expect from this potential platform change?
What we do know is, that some things will not be changing on the app, they will continue to support their ‘heritage’ which is photography and will keep pushing for you to see your friend’s content over random recommendations.
One of the biggest concerns over the app changing is the new dimensions of content, to be in a full-screen format, completely filling the screen (similarly to TikTok) – which is currently still in its testing stage. This is one of the more drastic differences from the original Instagram, which only allowed you to post a singular square 4x4 image with a funky pre-set filter.
In terms of the video side of Instagram, Adam Mosseri claims that the move to reels would have been inevitable regardless of any changes that they implemented within the app, as people are both sharing and engaging with videos over photos. However, most of the latest updates on the app have been heavily targeted at pushing videos within the feed, which has subsequently encouraged users to share more videos.
Another international complaint that Instagram is receiving is around the sheer number of recommendations that are appearing on the feed, these are from accounts that they do not follow, meaning their feed is full of random posts from people that they do not know. This feature is meant to help creators reach more accounts; however, the public are finding that this is just drowning out the content that the user wants to see. Instagram publicly recognised that if this feature isn’t something that the user is enjoying, then the app's algorithm must be wrong, which is something they plan to work on.
The video concluded with Adam explaining “This is a lot of change all at once but know that a number of things on Instagram are going to stay the same. But we’re going to also need to evolve. Because the world is changing quickly, and we’re going to have to change along with it.”
Sometimes change is good. What do you think?