Insta-changes! Photo-sharing app Instagram revealed a new change to its desktop platform on Wednesday, March 23, unveiling a notification system that resembles that of its umbrella company, Facebook.
Instagram, which started as a mobile app, has been slowly updating its web counterpart to look more like its phone version. TechCrunch first called out the changes, including the addition of an activities tab on desktop.
When users click on the heart button in the upper right-hand corner of the window, the latest likes and comments are listed in scrolling format, along with any notifications about which friends tagged you in posts.
Unlike the mobile app, the desktop version still lacks a "Following" tab, which tracks your friends' likes on other photos. The direct messaging app is also unavailable.
The desktop changes are now available to everyone, and follow a big announcement recently made by the company. Last week, Instagram announced its plans to switch its traditional timeline feed to a new algorithm scrolling feed that will surface the most popular updates up top.
“On average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their Instagram feed,” Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom told the New York Times on March 16. “What this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible.”
However, he and his teammates are open to feedback. “If it’s one thing we do really well as a company, it’s that we take big change slowly and deliberately and bring the community along with us,” Systrom told the paper. “It’s not like people will wake up tomorrow and have a different Instagram.”
