Instagram Stumbles in Push To Mimic TikTok, Internal Documents Show (wsj.com) 28
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is betting the social-media giant's near-term future on Instagram Reels, the short-video feature he is touting as the company's answer to TikTok. The company's internal research shows that Meta has a lot of catching up to do. From a report: Instagram users cumulatively are spending 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, less than one-tenth of the 197.8 million hours TikTok users spend each day on that platform, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that summarizes internal Meta research. The document, titled "Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022," was published internally in August. It said that Reels engagement had been falling -- down 13.6% over the previous four weeks -- and that "most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever." One reason is that Instagram has struggled to recruit people to make content. Roughly 11 million creators are on the platform in the U.S., but only about 2.3 million of them, or 20.7%, post on that platform each month, the document said.
I block all YouTube Short... (Score:2)
...and it seems I'll have to do just the same with this... Instagram Reels too.
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...and it seems I'll have to do just the same with this... Instagram Reels too.
I just block Instagram (aka CopyCats Inc.).
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Indeed, I bet they could write this same headline about YouTube. I wonder, in the race to the bottom, where we we go next from short video? Maybe endless scrolling of meme images will become more mainstream. That seems like pretty much the ultimate in media for short attention spans. It's so dystopian, like "A Clockwork Orange", but with no need for restraints.
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Indeed, I bet they could write this same headline about YouTube. I wonder, in the race to the bottom, where we we go next from short video?
We close the loop and go back to animated gifs.
It's worse than failing (Score:4, Informative)
From what I've been hearing not only is this not catching up to TikTok, but current Instagram users HATE the changes and I think a number of people may be leaving Instagram as a result.
People really liked Instagram, why couldn't Facebook (sorry, Meta) have made Instagram more like itself than something else?
Re:It's worse than failing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an amateur photographer, and follow quite a few other photographers on Instagram. The activity of those photographers has dropped significantly. Instead of posts from people I'm following showing up, their algorithm is pushing more and more memes into my home feed, and hiding the stuff that I actually signed up to see. And recently, people are trying to game the algorithm because Instagram is pushing the videos so hard, so people are uploading videos of the picture, which will show for a second, then have the "Replay video" prompt overlayed on it, effectively hiding the picture. It's hot garbage now, much more than it ever was, which is kind of impressive how they've fucked it up so thoroughly.
A word of advice to anyone running a popular site.
Realize what made your site popular. Embrace that. Expand upon that. Don't try to make your site a clone of another popular site. If we wanted a clone of that site, we'd simply go to that site, and not be using the one that we already like.
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I use Instagram mostly to follow photographers also and this is exactly what I am seeing as well, and people all over are complaining about - I find algo recommend content annoying at the best of times, but they go way, way too far in pushing out stuff I want to see in favor of things *they* want me see.
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People really liked Instagram, why couldn't Facebook (sorry, Meta) have made Instagram more like itself than something else?
New Coke Syndrome© just keeps repeating.
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When I used to smoke cigarettes... (Score:2)
I would always smoke the same brand.
Occasionally, I'd try a different brand for a day, but I'd still go back to my usual brand.
most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever (Score:2)
Article says most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever”. That's because most Reels users are watching them from the Facebook app, and if they want to engage with the reel (by commenting, for example), they can't do it easily unless they have an Instagram account and the Instagram app. People just don't bother and move on.
Also, the first time they introduced Reels, it was a nice feature with short videos which were entertaining or informative (sometimes both). It quickly went downhill, with a prol
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Shocking! (Score:3)
People who go to a photos app, wanting to see photos and talk about photos, ignore the not-photos! News at 11pm!
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Indeed. It's more of Youtube's forte, but I wonder how Youtube will screw it up also, just like they did with their Facebook Wannabe push a decade ago.
Clarification [Re:Shocking!] (Score:1)
Minor clarification: it was Google's push to be Facebook-like, not directly Youtube. (That pissed me off bigly, as they mixed together my personal stuff with work stuff in their attempt to "integrate" their services. I didn't want my data "integrated", you b$stards!)
Humm (Score:1)
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How is that? (Score:2)
I thought China might still be trying to catch up to how much personally identifiable information that Instagram mines and sells from their users. Vertical video sucks, and it sucks worse when it is meaningless and worthless shit propagated by teenagers who revel in being ignorant.
Facebook killed Instagram... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems all good ideas, when purchased by huge tech companies, are destroyed.
Instragram was once a really nice photo sharing app - simple, effective.
Then Facebook got their grubby paws on it and tried to turn it into something it was never supposed to be.
The lure of money was so strong, they tried to add more and more features to monetise what is/was effectively a free app to use - and thus destroyed it.
Sure, someone has to pay the bills for this kind of free usage, so it was inevitable that Instragram would eventually fall foul of simple economics.
It was good while it lasted.
Ultimately, however, like most "social networks", it's narcissism - "Look what I've had for dinner" "Look where I am" "Look how clever I am"
I reckon the vast bulk of social networks are ultimately doomed to become "mainstream" - which then means anything cool about them just dies on the vine.
But I'm an old greybeard fart, who was once very slightly hooked on social networks, until I realised, you know what? I don't actually feel the need to tell "the world" what I'm doing nor to see what everyone else is doing.
I just don't give a shit.
I did like some of the cool photo's that my friends took though, the non-narcassistic ones - before they all left instragram in disgust.
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If even catching up is hard (Score:2)
then instead of punching your kungfu training buddy, you should be busy worrying about other things as a CEO.
Instagram is an envy amplifier - Elon Musk (Score:2)
Elon Musk reacted to a clip of Charlie Munger talking about envy
world is not driven by greed, it's driven by envy [techtimes.com]
But why? (Score:2)
How hard can it really be to slap an obnoxious moving logo on shared video? I'm not sure what else there is to Tick Tock.
IG (Score:1)
Re:IG downloader2x.com (Score:1)