Obsolete tech products often suffer from what’s known as feature creep: excessive complexity caused by a buildup of bells and whistles over the years.
Log on to Facebook (launched in 2004) or Instagram (launched in 2010) these days and each available pixel seems to offer a different feature, function, tool or interface, many of which have been cloned from newer, more crowded competitors.
This all-for-all approach may leave the impression that Meta Platforms – Recently rebranded An umbrella company that oversees Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – lacks a clear view of its main applications.
But in a call with investors Wednesday afternoon, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a mission statement straight to Facebook and Instagram: Both are now TikTok.
It does not mean that explicitly. But it’s the path he’s charted for both apps, toward an experience dominated by the video content the algorithm suggests, that will bring them more closely aligned with ByteDance’s proprietary video app that is fast becoming their fiercest competitor — even if their users will. Explicitly prefer otherwise.
TikTok’s looseness in its wake wasn’t the only reason the company reported its first ever debut Decreased quarterly revenue year on year In the earnings report Accompanying Zuckerberg’s call. Apple’s privacy feature introduced last year makes it difficult to monetize and the ongoing war in Ukraine has combined to put the company in a tough spot.
But it was the Reels feature, the TikTok-knockoff feature on Instagram, and other TikTok-inspired hubs that Zuckerberg emphasized in his call as offering hope for the future.
“One of the major shifts in our work right now is that social feeds are going from being primarily driven by the people and accounts you follow to increasingly being driven by AI recommending content you find interesting via Facebook or Instagram,” Zuckerberg said. “Reels are part of a trend focused on the growth of short video as a content format, but this general AI trend is much broader and covers all types of content.”
“Currently, our AI recommends about 15% of the content in a person’s Facebook feed, and a little more than the content of their Instagram feed,” he added. “We expect these numbers to more than double by the end of next year.”
Zuckerberg said people spent more than 30% of the time watching Reels in the company’s last quarter, and the company has now topped the $1 billion annual revenue run rate for Reels ads.
Even before Zuckerberg doubled down on Instagram, Instagram’s TikTokification surge was infuriating users.
One viral post, “Make Instagram Again”, urged that both Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, two of the platform’s biggest influencers, subscriber. “Stop trying to be TikTok.”
a Change.org petition Claims to return chronological content feeds and reconfirm still photography created by Same Instagrammer Who made the viral post, has now collected more than 200,000 signatures.
in a video to treat Reacting to the recent changes, Adam Mosseri, head of the platform, said that while Instagram will continue to support still photography, “more and more Instagram will become videos.” Mosseri has also established a framework for introducing more recommended content into users’ feeds as a way to help younger content creators find an audience.
This isn’t the first time Meta has embraced a competitor innovation. In 2016, the company sought to fend off a threat from Snapchat by adding Stories disappear on Instagram; Later expanded Feature on Facebook and WhatsApp. It is also not the first time that the company has attempted a downward regulation Axis on the video A tactic that has proven in the past to be disastrous for many publishers.
As it works to keep up with TikTok, the company is meanwhile trying to build a future for itself outside of social media feeds. The rebranding of Meta, which was launched last October, was part of a broader effort by Zuckerberg to shift his company toward an obscure blend of e-commerce, virtual reality and interactive digital environments dubbed “metaverse.”
“The metaverse is a huge opportunity for a number of reasons,” Zuckerberg said on the call. “Most importantly, it enables deeper social experiences. … By helping to develop these platforms, we will have the freedom to build these experiences the way we think the industry as a whole is best, rather than being constrained by the limitations that our competitors impose on us.”
But even according to the company’s own estimates, the mainstream and easy-to-use metaverse is still years away. Meanwhile, stuck in the burden of being an old social media brand – trying to make money in processing.