The word TikTok did not fall in the short video that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri distributed on Tuesday on Instagram and Twitter. But everything Mosseri said in the video showed that Instagram is feeling the hot breath of the popular video app from China.
Instagram also seems nervous as the social medium has received criticism from prominent social media personalities Kylie Jenner (360 million followers on Instagram) and her half-sister Kim Kardashian (326 million followers).
Jenner and Kardashian had shared the call “Make Instagram Instagram again” on the platform on Monday. “And don’t try to be a tiktok, I just want to see nice pictures of my friends.”
Dissatisfaction with such powerful users cannot be easily ignored by a platform. It was immediately reminded on Twitter that when Jenner wrote in 2018 that she would never view the messaging service Snapchat again, the company’s stock market value immediately fell by 1.3 billion dollars (1.28 billion euros).
Instagram, like Facebook and WhatsApp part of Meta, is “experimenting with changes to our app,” Mosseri told Instagram’s more than 1.2 billion users. “We’re getting a lot of concerned responses from you.”
Seeing new things, he warned, such as a full-screen “post” is a test that only a few percent of users see. “The idea is that, not just for videos but for photos, it’s a more enjoyable experience. But it’s not good yet.”
Another concern among users is that on Instagram, originally a photo app, video is becoming more and more prominent. “We will continue to support photos,” assures Mosseri. “But I have to be honest: Instagram will become more and more a video app anyway.”
Mosseri also says that users will get more posts from people or institutions they don’t follow or know, based on algorithms recommended by Instagram. And that means that photos and videos of friends and acquaintances are somewhat supplanted as a result. “It’s one of the most effective ways to extend the reach of creative users. The world is changing, and we have to change with it.” (NRC)