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| Instagram is focusing on switching to TikTok mode |
Instagram Director Adam Mosseri announced that the social network plans to display videos recommended to users in full screen mode in the feed.
Following the success of competitors like Tik Tok and YouTube, the platform hopes to branch out into entertainment and video.
“We are also experimenting with how we can use video more broadly, including full screen videos, immersive videos, and entertainment videos,” Mosseri said in a video. You'll see that we've done a lot and tried a lot in this area over the next few months.
Mosseri made it clear that Instagram plans to display videos to users in full screen mode in the feed.
This includes videos recommended by users, including videos from accounts they don't follow.
Over the next few months, he said, users will see Instagram experience these changes. "We are no longer a photo-sharing app or a square-photo-sharing app," he added. Instead, it is a generic entertainment app driven by algorithms and video.
This was a big change for Instagram, which until now remains an important app where users can see square photos of their friends and the accounts they follow.
Changes in how content is presented make Instagram more direct competition with TikTok, a Chinese startup in the social app market.
Instagram focuses on Tik Tok
Mosseri specifically highlighted Google's Tik Tok and YouTube as serious competitors and the reasons for these changes.
"There is strong competition at the moment," he said. Tik Tok is big, YouTube is bigger. There are many other startups.
Instagram has prioritized competition with TikTok by launching Reels in August 2020, a short video feature that enables users of the platform to create content with layered sound effects and augmented reality.
Mosseri said: “People are looking for entertainment on Instagram, there is a lot of competition here and there is more to do. We have to embrace what the change means.
Recently, information has surfaced about Instagram's use of algorithm plugins for feeding experiments. But the idea of building it from themes that users can choose from seems more appropriate for the platform.
In the increasingly competitive arena of social media, Instagram wants to make its behavior and its reasons public.