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Instagram To Follow Twitter For An Algorithmic Timeline

Instagram To Follow Twitter For An Algorithmic Timeline
A journalist makes a video of the Instagram logo using the new video feature at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, June 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A journalist makes a video of the Instagram logo using the new video feature at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, June 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

If you seem to be missing out on most of the action on your friends' Instagram feeds, the popular photo sharing website will soon address the problem by changing their timeline to an algorithmic one. Till now users were able to see posts in the reverse chronological order. The photographs which were posted recently showed up on the top.

But Instagram seems to think that this approach makes people miss 70 percent of their feeds. They think that as more and more users are coming on board it is hard to catch up with all the posts. To avoid that they will be rolling out modified feed, the one like Instagram's owner Facebook uses.

A blog posted by Instagram said, "The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order."

"To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most," they said. This decision has caused anxiety among the users. There is an ongoing petition to scrap the change and keep the reverse chronological order for the timeline. Almost 81000 Instagrammers have signed the petition.

"We are users of Instagram and do not want to be forced into having our feeds display in an order chosen by an algorithm. We want the ability to at least choose to keep our feeds in chronological order". The petitioner also believes that the algorithmic feed will be detrimental to small businesses and artists," the petition says.

Recently, Twitter changed their timeline to have 'Best tweets for you' on the top. Before the announcement the users outraged when they learnt that the microblogging platform is going to change the order of the tweets. #RIPTwitter was trending on Twitter with angry comments. The company's CEO Jack Dorsey had to tweet to pacify users and saying that users will always have the choice.

Instagram on the other hand seems to be losing user interaction according to a report published in VentureBeat. The survey was conduted on over 10000 users and it showed that the interaction has dropped 40% compared to the last year. It is to be seen if Instagram retracts its descision due to the backlash or give users and option to opt out.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.