The official Instagram blog announces product features such as Stories, Direct, Hyperlapse and feed changes, as well as policy updates.
HN links it for feature announcements, including Hyperlapse and the algorithmic feed ordering. Commenters discuss these changes, with one noting the feed might also change content.
> But this is what we wanted? [...] Why do we pretend this is not intentional?
I don't think in 2005 anyone expected a global, free communications network, video calling and a camera in every pocket to lead to an "epidemic of loneliness" - quite the opposite in fact.
Facebook: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together." [1]
Youtube: "Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories." [2]
Reddit: "focused on our north star of bringing community and belonging to everyone in the world" [3]
Tiktok: "Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy." [4]
Apple: "We believe that business, at its best, serves the public good, empowers people around the world, and binds us together as never before." [5]
Instagram: "Where everyday moments bring friends together" [6]
Snapchat: "empowers people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. It's the easiest and fastest way to communicate the full range of human emotions with your friends" [7]
Discord: "Discord is about giving people the power to create space to find belonging in their lives. We want to make it easier for you to talk regularly with the people you care about. We want you to build genuine relationships with your friends and communities close to…
This is more interesting (Instagram response to WSJ, linked to in the article): https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/using-research-to-improve-your-experience
"We're increasingly focused on addressing negative social comparison and negative body image. One idea we think has promise is finding opportunities to jump in if we see people dwelling on certain types of content."
"From our research, we're starting to understand the types of content some people feel may contribute to negative social comparison, and we're exploring ways to prompt them to look at different topics if they're repeatedly looking at this type of content."
Wow, talk about "Big Brother".
Facebook/Instagram monitors everything the user looks at, how many times and for how long, and now they will "jump in" and alert the user.
"We're watching you and we think you should look at something else."
Meanwhile the whole "business model" of Instgram/Facebook is online advertising.
Advertising, e.g., in print, is what created these "negative body image" problems in the first place!
As they say, in the world of computers, what is old is new again. Originality is rare.
Big Tech relies on the same tired, old consumerism ideas, except it operates over the internet.
The only thing "futuristic" is the surveillance. Its nothing less than incredible what young people today are tolerating. Are they studying the psychological affects of surveillance on young people.
> "You could argue that theatre, cinema and opera also rely on getting and keeping your attention. Nobody says they're addictive or "gamified"."
Theatre, cinema and opera are experiences that are best appreciated in small doses. Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you?
> "The reason I have trouble seeing the "gamification" aspects of Instagram is that there are none. This idea that a photo sharing site is designed to be like a drug exists in your head - every argument you make easily applies to many other kinds of business that nobody considers addictive."
You have to separate the intention from the result. Did the creators of Instagram intend to create, as you put it, "a drug"? No. However, they did intend to make it a popular platform for advertisers, and advertisers are clearly interested in getting as many eyeballs on their products as they can, and the more the creators of Instagram can do to make their site sticky and drive engagement, the more their company will grow. Whilst their users are of strategic importance, their most important customers are advertisers. Increasing the userbase only makes sense if there's a corresponding increase in advertising revenue, they can't run on good will.
To give an example of a feature that increases the stickiness of Instagram (note that I didn't use "drug", that was your term), I'd suggest Instagram Stories (a feature inspired by…
Instagram have left open the option that in the future the curated timeline may also adjust the content of your feed so even if you could fix the ordering at a temporal level, there would still be omissions.
> As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.[0]
Also the "promoted post" feature which they have in their new business tools[1] looks like down the track it will incorporate a feature where businesses can pay for their regular Instagram photos to appear in more feeds. Which means even more that the `/posts` endpoint which you hit as a user is controlled by Instagram
[0]: http://blog.instagram.com/post/141107034797/160315-news
[1]: http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/145212269021/new-business-tools
Fair point. I think what interested me about the article was that both Facebook and Twitter were mentioned equally (8 times each) during last year's Super Bowl commercials. I agree that Twitter is the social platform traditional media has the most affinity towards, so in that respect, the results are to be expected.
Here are some stats on Super Bowl mentions that might be of interest to you:
Facebook: http://newsroom.fb.com/News/570/Super-Bowl-XLVII-on-Facebook
Twitter: http://blog.twitter.com/2013/02/the-super-tweets-of-sb47.html
Instagram: http://blog.instagram.com/post/42254883677/sbroundup
Google (search, not +): http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/m-beyonce-and-ravens-dominate-game-day.html
That's my recollection, too.
I think Instagram wasn't annotating their pages with either OpenGraph metadata or Twitter card metadata, and so you got a bland link vs a rich preview.
It seems like Instagram _were_ publishing og:image tags at one point, but then removed it. See, for example, this 2019 reddit post [1].
Instagram then announced a change to this policy in December of 2021 [2] and now annotates with og:image again.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/dn2wsw/saving_an_original_imageogimage_is_gone_now/
[2]: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-better-previews-of-your-content-outside-of-instagram