Instagram Chief Says That Thing You Hate Is Only Going To Get Worse
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has posted a video on Twitter and Instagram in which he makes it clear that videos are the future of Instagram. Now, just to give some background information here, the social media platform announced some Reel-centric changes a few days ago that didn't sit well with a lot of users, including members of the Kardashian clan who have hundreds of millions of followers. But there is both good and bad news here. Let's start with the obvious bad news.
"I need to be honest. I do believe that more and more of Instagram is gonna become video over time," Mosseri says. He adds that if you look at the app's main feed, the content shared by people and their consumption pattern is increasingly shifting to videos over static images, which is where Instagram had its start in the first place. However, the silver lining here is that Instagram will stay loyal to photos, despite the social media evolution pushing it towards a video-centric future.
"I want to be clear. We're going to continue to support photos. It's part of our heritage," Mosseri notes. However, the recent wave of tests and public-facing changes that Instagram has undertaken make it abundantly clear that photos have taken a backseat on the Meta-owned social media platform. At the heart of all these changes is the struggle to retain the young audience, which is increasingly finding TikTok and Snapchat to be the more happening online social destinations.
Desperate moves that can alienate core audience
A few days ago, Instagram announced that in the coming weeks, all videos shared by users (with a public profile) under 15 minutes of length will be turned into Reels. That means all eligible videos will appear in the Reels tab for Instagram users across the world. Plus, Instagram is also merging the video and Reels feed into a single dashboard for all clips. Additionally, Instragam is extending the remixing capability to pictures, as well. To put it simply, your public photos can be remixed by other Instagram users to make new reaction Reels.
The company also announced a bunch of new features, all of which focus on making Reels creation easier and more creative. Recently, Instagram also started a test that adopts a full-screen layout for all content, just like TikTok. And then there is the recommendation feed, which is going to show more video content from accounts you don't follow in hopes that users might find it engaging.
With all the aforementioned changes in the pipeline, users are worried that Instagram is losing its appeal as the place for saving memories and finding content shared by their close friends and family members. At least Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are not fans of Instagram's shift to videos and the incessant Tiktok-ification. Here's some fun trivia: the last time Kylie Jenner lambasted a platform (read: Snapchat), the ripple effect wiped $1.3 billion from the said social media platform's coffers.