It’s time ENTERthe king.
Instagram is making a slew of sweeping changes in an effort to woo TikTok users as the app’s future hangs in the balance.
TikTok was temporarily shut down after the Supreme Court passed a law requiring ByteDance to divest its stake in the company by January. 19 or face a national ban.
On Monday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that suspended the ban for 75 days to find an American buyer.
Meanwhile, Instagram is moving quickly to get so-called “TikTok refugees” to migrate to the Meta-owned app.
Here are just a few of their new features:
A new video editing app
On Sunday, the same day that TikTok was temporarily banned in the US, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced a new app called Edits, a video editing app that could replace the ByteDance-owned video editing app. , CapCut – which was also banned along with TikTok.
“Now, there’s a lot going on in the world right now, and no matter what happens, we feel it’s our job to create the most compelling creative tools for those of you who make videos not just for Instagram, but for platforms out there like we can,” said Mosseri in his announcement video.
Mosseri added that the app “isn’t for people who use desktop apps. It’s not for people looking for templates. It’s for people who use their phone to make short videos.”
The app will be a “complete creative toolkit” with a dedicated tab for inspiration and trending audio, a tab to keep track of ideas and rough drafts, the ability to share drafts with friends, and insights and analytics for Reels – ” aka short videos that are posted on Instagram.
It will also offer AI animation, generating titles, as well as overlays such as text, sound and sound effects, filters and stickers. The changes will allow videos up to 10 minutes long, according to the App Store description.
So far, Edits is available for free pre-order download from the App Store and won’t officially launch until February, Mosseri said.
However, the App Store lists an expected availability date of March 13.
Mosseri added that the first version of the app will be “incomplete,” though it will be updated over time.
Long profile networks
Instagram profile grids now display all posts as rectangles with a 4:5 ratio instead of squares, a change that rolled out last weekend.
“I know some of you really like your squares. And square photos are a kind of legacy of Instagram. But at this point, most of what’s uploaded, both photos and videos, are vertical in their orientation,” Mosseri said in an Instagram story on Friday, The Verge reported.
After the initial rollout, Mosseri posted on his feed Monday that he received “both positive and quite negative” feedback about the change and shared more details about how the network will change in the coming months.
“We started with the long grid because most photos and videos uploaded to Instagram at this point are vertical and rectangular, so a better job of displaying those photos and videos,” he wrote in the caption.
“But I know some of you spend a lot of time debugging your grids and this blew it all up, so we’re going to improve the ability to customize those thumbnails.”
The Instagram post shows how the app will allow people to change and edit the post thumbnail that appears on the network.
Network highlights
In the same Instagram post, Mosseri shared that they’re looking to move story highlights to the grid, creating a separate tab for them — just like separate tabs for Grids and tagged photos — instead of keep them as circles at the top of your profile.
“Highlights are a great way to showcase your favorite stories, but they’re visually complicated and drag your grid down,” Mosseri wrote. “To maintain creator control, we’re building a tool so you can re-order your entire network and make it whatever you want.”
He added that “as a bonus,” Instagram will add the ability to post directly to the network and “skip [the home] feed fully”, means that the post will appear on your profile, but will not go to the main page of your followers.
Mosseri previously said in an Instagram Live that the goal of this was to get more content “over the sheep” — though he admitted that “that’s controversial” and he “might not be able to make it work,” according to Mashable.
Friends at Reels
Now your friends can see which spins you like on Instagram.
A new feature in the Reels tab will let you see which friends have liked or commented on a video — similar to Instagram’s chaotic old “activity” tab that was removed in 2019.
“We want Instagram to be not just a place where you consume entertaining content, but a place where you connect with that content with friends with shared interests,” Mosseri said in a video announcement.
In the upper-right corner of the tab, there will be some friends’ profile pictures in the upper-right corner, and when you tap that, there’ll be a “dedicated feed” of reels your friends have liked — and you’ll be able to see which friends specifically liked the Reel.
“We’re doing this because we want Instagram to be not just a supported experience, but a participatory experience, a social one, where you actually explore your interests with your friends,” Mosseri explained.
#coming #Instagram #TikTok #refugees #crash
Image Source : nypost.com