Instagram has introduced a new Explore tab that acts as a placeholder of suggested list of videos. Titled ‘Videos You Might Like,’ the section will be hosting videos not necessarily from those known to the user but also from the global community of Instagram users. Of course, the videos won’t just be chosen at random. Instead, only those videos will be included in the Explore tab that matches the user’s preferences, and hence, have a high likelihood of being viewed.
Videos have been among the newfound focus areas at Instagram (that applies to parent company Facebook as well), and the above development can well be considered as a further evolution of that thought process.
Earlier, there were quite a few updates meted out to the video section so that users now get to see how many likes their videos have gone for or actually shooting short 60-second video clips as well.
That is all that gets changed with the new Explore tab while everything else remains the same. What that means is that it still follows the same basic principle of serving the user the posts, be it either images or videos based on their interests and preferences. The whole thing is designed to trigger a cascading effect of sorts – with users ‘liking’ more and more videos; Explore too will get to know more about the user’s preferences.
That way, the app too will be able to serve more video links and so on.
In addition, users have the option to let the app know when they have not liked a particular video. All that they have to do is a tap on the ‘See Fewer Posts Like This’ from the Menu setting. That way, videos of that genre won’t be included in the Explore tab of the user ever again. What is also sure to be liked by many is that the Explore tab will continue to list the posts in chronological order. Worth mentioning here, Instagram’s earlier move to list its posts as per an algorithm based on what a user is most likely to see had sparked a furore over social circles.
However, the Explore tab is only available to Instagram users in the US, and it remains to be seen how soon it is rolled out elsewhere in the world.
