Instagram plans to look more like Facebook

Instagram announced Tuesday that it plans to change the way users’ timelines look, by ordering posts using an algorithm rather than simply displaying the photos in reverse chronological order.

The company said it believes prioritizing some posts over others is best for users.

“You may be surprised to learn that people miss, on average, 70 per cent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most.

“To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.”

The algorithm it is developing, Instagram said, will weigh posts by looking at users’ relationships and at how timely any given post is. The official announcement was light on details, but it’s likely this means that posts from accounts users frequently comment on or like will have a more prominent place on their feeds. That would be very similar to the way Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, displays its users’ timelines.

Since Instagram’s acquisition in 2012, Facebook has largely left the service to run as it always has, although the companies share similar community guidelines and advertising services.

Facebook, of course, has faced a lot of criticism over the years for the way it’s tweaked the central timeline in the pursuit of serving up the most relevant posts for its users.

It’s not clear when Instagram users will see the new change applied to their accounts. The company told the Washington Post that it will begin testing the new orders on less than 10 per cent of its users and hasn’t yet decided if users will be able to opt out of the new timeline.