Instagram Announces New Algorithmic Timeline

With over 400 million active users monthly and 3.5 billion likes a day, Instagram is one of the biggest photo sharing platforms in the world. These impressive stats clearly show that Instagram have done something right – having started just 4 years ago Instagram has propelled itself to the top as one of the most popular apps in the World. And they’ve just announced a huge change of their platform.

Announcing the shake up in a blog post published earlier this week, Instagram have decided to introduce an algorithmic timeline. Coming just a few weeks after Twitter implemented the exact same thing, an algorithmic timeline will display posts that the logged in user is likely to care about first, rather than showing the latest post first.  

With Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr having all introduced very similar updates in the recent months, it seems that all social platforms are moving away from the traditional way of displaying a timeline chronologically. But why are so many platforms doing this? Well, Instagram claimed this is because “most users miss on average 70% of their timeline” and that introducing the algorithm will ensure every user is only seeing the content they really care about.

Being able to view only the content you care about seems like a good idea, but aren’t we already achieving that by following only the accounts we want to rather than every account on the platform?! It seems concern over this algorithmic update is shared by many across the globe:

No no noooo #ripinstagram I HATE algorithms that show me 'what I want'. I follow people to see ALL their content!! https://t.co/nRJ9LbqYCN

— S Parker (@SParky_1989) March 17, 2016

Why do all social networks assume that we want to have our feeds "optimised"? Just show me things in the order posted 😣😣 #RIPInstagram

— Kate Livingston (@K8Livingston) March 16, 2016

What you guys thinking about the proposed Instagram algorithm feed changes? One of the reasons I don't use Facebook anymore 😟 #RIPInstagram

— Stylonylon (@juliarebaudo) March 16, 2016

Why does every social media platform suddenly want to destroy itself?

Bye bye, #RIPInstagram https://t.co/Fl38LP3mWz

— .avi ren (@avi_ren) March 16, 2016

I follow people because I want their updates, in chronological order. I don't want you to choose who I see first, @instagram. #RIPInstagram

— Sarah Dolislager (@sarahdolislager) March 16, 2016

It is actually quite hard to find much support for the update online, with the hashtag #RIPInstagram currently growing in momentum on Twitter. What do you think about Instagram's announcement? Let us know on Twitter @inbounderly.

Share this post with your friends to let them know what's coming!


Tweet