Instagram’s new algorithm-based timeline which seeks to place contents based on user preferences seem to have hit a raw nerve with its users. Fortunately, Instagram too has got into the rescue act soon enough, saying they are well aware of the user’s apprehensions and won’t be doing anything adverse to their interests.
“We’re listening and we assure you nothing is changing with your feed right now,” the company revealed in a tweet message.
The Facebook-owned image and video sharing site had earlier announced it will be adopting a new content listing algorithm where those posts that users are most likely to see or prefer are given preference in the user’s timeline. This would replace the chronological order in which posts got listed at Instagram since its inception, with its instant attribute also happening to be among the biggest draw of the site.
However, with posts now getting listed as per user preferences or interests have led to celebrity users going up in arms against the move who fear their posts will stop being seen by as many users as it used to be.
An immediate solution from Instagram is the new notification system that can be invoked for each account. No wonder there already has been a flurry of appeals from celebrity posters as well as those who has a serious dependence on Instagram for something as important as eking out a living asking their followers to keep the notification on.
However, while there has been a growing clamour among regular users of the app to revert to the old chronological way of listing user’s posts, something exemplified by the emergence and eventual popularity of the #boycottinstagram hashtag, there are also those who have so far refused to enable notifications as a mark of protest.
Users have also stated notification might not prove to be the most effective way to remain updated of the latest posts as the same will be keeping user’s devices busy each time a new post is made.
Twitter is the other social networking site that too adopted a new algorithm to arrange tweets on a user’s timeline based on the tweet’s popularity as well as user’s likely preferences. However, the move that sought to replace the reverse chronological manner in which tweets have originally been arranged too had attracted the ire of regular users. Fortunately for Twitter users, they have a means to revert to the original. Not so for Instagram though.
