Instagram Announces Move to Algorithmic Feeds

Posted on March 15, 2016

Instagram has announced a plan to move to algorithmic feeds. This is similar to what Facebook does with its feeds. Instead of displaying your feed in chronological order (like seen above) Instagram will use a computer program to decide the order your posts appear in.

In its post about the news Instagram says people "miss on average 70 percent of their feeds."

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.
If your favorite musician shares a video from last night's concert, it will be waiting for you when you wake up, no matter how many accounts you follow or what time zone you live in. And when your best friend posts a photo of her new puppy, you won't miss it.
We're going to take time to get this right and listen to your feedback along the way. You'll see this new experience in the coming months.

An algorithmic feed is fine as long as the chronological option remains. It appears Instagram does not plan to provide users with a chronological option. Facebook does this as well and the lack of a chronologically organized feed is something Facebook users complain about. Twitter has also introduced algorithmic feeds but they have kept the reverse chronological option.

Instagram says the new algorithmic organized feeds will being in the coming months.