Instagram is working on a new "Favorites" feature
Instagram is working on a new feature called "Favorites". The feature is being developed as a counterpart to a feature already available on Facebook that ranks people whose posts you want to see first in your feed.
According to reverse-engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, posts from favorites are displayed higher in the feed. Soon, this "Favorites" feature will appear in the user settings on the tab of the same name. Users will then be able to choose how many subscribers they want to add to this section.
If it works in the same way as Facebook, users will be able to add up to 30 friends to the "Favorites" section.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri recently explained how Instagram's current algorithm works. He said that the app focuses on the posts of the people you follow. Based on information about exactly what was posted, the people who made those posts, and the user's preferences, the app finds certain "signals":
- Information about the post. These are both signals about the popularity of the post - how many people liked it - and more mundane information about the content itself, such as when it was posted, how long if it's a video, and what geo-position, if any, was attached to it.
- Information about the person who posted. This takes into account how interesting this person is to you, and includes signals such as the number of interactions with them in the last few weeks.
- Your activity. The metric helps to understand what you might be interested in, and includes signals such as the number of posts you've liked.
- Your interaction history. This gives an indication of how interested you are in seeing a particular person's posts. For example, whether or not you comment on each other's posts.
In short, a lot of complicated and academic work instead of letting people see exactly what they subscribe to and exactly how it was posted.