Your Instagram home feed is getting a huge change
Amid the frantic CES news cycle, Instagram has revealed that significant changes are coming to our Home feeds. Entering testing today is a new feature that gives us three different feeds to explore when opening up the app. While the standard Home feed isn't going anywhere, it will be joined by two new feeds that will almost certainly prove to be popular among the Instagram-using masses.
These new feeds were revealed by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who posted his announcement to both Instagram and Twitter today. In a brief video, Mosseri explains that Instagram is now testing the "ability to switch between three different views on your home screen." The new feeds include the standard Home feed, which is joined by new Favorites and Following feeds.
The Home feed will be the same one you've already been using. This is where Instagram will rank the content based on what it believes each individual user will want to see most. The stuff in this feed will be presented out of chronological order; instead, it'll be ordered by what Instagram thinks is most relevant to you.
The Favorites feed is fairly self-explanatory, but it's here that users will see content from accounts that are important to them. It sounds like users will set their favorites themselves, with Mosseri saying that he uses that feed to follow his siblings, a few of his favorite creators, and some of his best friends. Mosseri didn't explain how users will set their favorites, and he also didn't reveal how many favorites each user can have if there's any limit at all.
The third and final feed will be the Following feed. This is where you'll find posts from only the accounts you follow. Mosseri suggests that the Following feed is necessary because the Home feed will have "more and more recommendations over time." It's well worth noting that both the Favorites and Following feeds will be in chronological order, which is probably going to make a lot of Instagram users happy.
Years ago, Instagram ditched chronological feeds, much to the annoyance of many of its users. While the Home feed, which was once controversial, isn't going anywhere, it's nice to see that chronological feeds will be making a comeback in the Favorites and Following feeds.
Keep in mind, however, that these new feeds are only in testing for now. It sounds like Instagram is planning to roll out this test to certain users over the course of the next few weeks, but we'll have to wait a little while before the feeds launch for everyone. Mosseri says that Instagram is hoping to launch these new feeds in the first half of 2022, which is a pretty broad release window. We'll let you know when the company shares more specifics, so stay tuned.