Instagram working on algorithmic feeds similar to Facebook

Instagram says that 70 percent of shared photos and videos are missed by users on their feeds simply because it takes a lot of scrolling to get to the ones that were posted not so recently — particularly when opening Instagram upon waking up or after a long time away from the service. This results in users’ not seeing the posts they might care about the most.

Instagram wants this to change. So, it’s changing the way posts are ordered in feeds, using an algorithm similar to the ones employed by Facebook and, more recently, Twitter.

To more or less ensure that the posts you might care about the most are surfaced to the top of your feeds, Instagram is working to reorder posts “based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.”

Initially at least, all of the posts from accounts you follow will still be shown in your feed, but just not chronologically as things are at the moment. It makes sense, then, that Instagram has recently begun displaying timestamps below captions and comments rather than on top of posts, where they can easily be seen.

Instagram’s new algorithm-based feed display will take effect “in the coming months.” There’s no word yet, though, on whether it will be something that users can choose to opt in to and on whether users can choose to still view posts in normal chronological order. I, for one, welcome our new algorithmic overlords.

Recently, Instagram extended video ads to 60 seconds, enabled multiple account switching, and added view counts to video posts.