On Tuesday Instagram released an update that will transform a component of the app into a stream of real-time updates from across the country. In other words, Instagram wants to take traffic away from Facebook and Twitter and be the number one source for news for all social media fanatics.
The update will make it more convenient to find the content you are interested in seeing by using a rotating banner at the top of the page to present a fully curated collection of everything from athletes to music festivals from around the US.
The revised search engine will also allow hashtag based results to prioritize the most popular posts associated with the key-term in order to cut down on time a user spends aimlessly browsing and not seeing what he or she wants after a long duration of scouring. All of these new features being offered by the most popular photo app in existence is to simply make accounts that users do not directly follow easier to access and network with.
While it may seem like a stretch for Instagram to expand outside of the confines it has set in place by its’ own systematic approach to combining the connectivity of social media with the visual splendor of photography, there seems to be a number of well-respected individuals in the tech community that have faith in Instagram’s bold move to do what sites like Facebook have accomplished in such a short amount of time.
So what do you think? Is Instagram overstepping its’ boundaries? Or is their confidence at an all time high that now may be the best opportunity to further develop an already exceptional app? Tweet us your thoughts @StarterNoise using the hashtag #InstagramRedefined
