Instagram is taking a cue from Twitter with its most recent update. On Tuesday, the app started updating its feed. Twitter is known for capturing live events in the form of tweets.
Instagram updates photo feed
Instagram’s Kevin Systrom doesn’t feel Twitter captures everything or helps people feel as if they are a part of things. He explained that it’s hard to find the source where live media happens. Instagram’s new feed with photos and videos is poised to deliver a more satisfactory experience. Systrom added:
“If you want live media happening right now from a place, it’s really hard to get to. We’re unlocking a new capability in the world. It is allowing our community to connect to the world as it happens.”
The updated Explore button now displays important photos of events from local and other sources. It also comes with a useful search function that makes it easy to find photos of any related topic. The new Instagram update is quite similar to Twitter’s Project Lightening. The latter is an upcoming update that will highlight the best content on timely topics. The topics will be chosen by human editors as a way to supplement the tweet feed.
Instagram’s future issues
It is important to point out that Systrom’s plans for Instagram to be more like Twitter come with a unique set of challenges. Some of those notable challenges include the fact that text captions that can’t be searched for. The only way a user can find the images they are looking for is by using hashtags.
If Systrom’s dream for Instagram is going to come true, the company will have to make some key changes. Instagram usually shows images from other the accounts users follow. Even the search feature was flawed as users would search for photos with a particular tag and end up with every photo. There was no way to filter the results to find the most recent photos.
