The new Instagram move aims at differentiating the feature with Snapchat Stories. (Photo : Getty Images/ Lionel Bonaventure)
Instagram will give personalized recommendations for users to follow through algorithmically-driven, personalized suggestions in a bid to differentiate the feature with Snapchat Stories and make stories more popular with users.
The new feature, which will roll out soon to everyone, will appear in Instagram's Explore section, according to TechCrunch. Currently, Instagram Stories are widely seen as a copycat of Snapchat's popular Stories feature and this move will be now one major difference.
Snapchat by contrast has always taken a hands-off approach by not making recommendations and instead allowing its users to find accounts to follow on their own.
On the top of the Explore tab, Instagram will start showing some users a bar of Stories from accounts they could follow. Based on who the users follow and the topics they care about, the tailored suggestions will simplify the addition of a new friend to user's Home feed's Stories section.
The suggestions will surely get plenty of attention because Explore is amazingly popular. Instagram says 100 million people visit the Explore tab daily which is about one-third of its daily active users and 20% of its 500 million monthly active users.
The move by Instagram could speed up the growth of its Stories audience, as new users do not necessarily need to find friends who also use it to engage with the feature. This follows Facebook's strategy of using AI for curation instead of humans.
Instagram hopes its users will appreciate the feature which now differentiate it from the Snapchat user experience, Yahoo news reported.
While describing why people visit Explore, Blake Barnes, the Instagram's Director of Product Management said, "Some users seek it out as the primary way they use Instagram...while some view it as a dessert."
When the tab was first unveiled, it was known as Popular and it merely showed the most commented-on and Liked posts across Instagram.
Instagram did not give specifics on the growth of its version of Stories, but Barnes said that they were really excited to see how quickly they have caught on, whether with everyday users or celebrities and brands."
Snapchat, an image messaging and multimedia mobile application does not seem to be outright losing users to Instagram Stories, but the real threat is that this copycat could possibly keep non-Snappers from straying. Barnes concludes, "It has the early signs of being a product people love."
Watch the New Instagram Feature here:
