There was no need for him to write it explicitly since the direction taken was already clear for all to see, but recently Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri admitted that the platform has shifted too much attention to video content at the expense of photographic content, which is what the social network was born for.
Over the past few years, Meta has changed its focus Instagram, which we recall was born as a photo app, but then the arrival of new competitors pushed the company to open up to short videos, primarily due to TikTok. This left many users dissatisfied with the direction in progress and after Instagram canceled the design changes that wanted to make the app increasingly similar to TikTok, Mosseri declared that the platform will focus again on the balance between the amount of photos and videos shown to users. Here is an excerpt of the Story, saved before it disappeared 24 hours after publication.
We definitely have a number of photographers who are shocked. I want to be clear: Even though we’re leaning into video, we still value photos. Photos will always be a part of Instagram. I think in 2022, we focused too much on video and pushed the rankings too far and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos. We’ve since balanced, so things like how often someone likes photos versus videos and how often someone comments on photos versus videos are about the same, which is a good sign that things are balanced. And so to the extent that over time there is more video on Instagram, it will be because that’s what drives more of the overall engagement. But photos will always be a big part of what we do. And there will always be people who love and are interested in finding photos on Instagram and elsewhere. And I want to make sure that we’re very clear about that.
Mosseri essentially wanted to explain that the company will continue to invest in videos, since this content has generated more engagement in general, but that Instagram will not remove photos from its app. Among the many questions asked and the answers provided, Mosseri also addressed the topic of spam on the platform.
“We definitely have spam and bots on Instagram. We’re doing our best to reduce that. I’m particularly concerned about comments right now; it’s something we’re actually actively looking into and hoping to improve over the course of the year. I’ve noticed an increase in spam and bot accounts liking my stories, which, at least for me, is more annoying than the fake comments.”
Earlier this week, Instagram announced new features including silent mode and the ability to mark multiple posts on the Explore page as “not interesting,” with the latter expected to improve recommended content on profiles.
Discover more
Article published on 25 January 2023 - 12:32
