Curated video feeds was a recurring theme of several social networks last year that started with Snapchat’s Discover page and with Twitter’s Moments. Snapchat served curated videos on Discover while Twitter’s Moments was a concoction of both text and video that were categorized into various topics. However, Instagram decided to curate photos first when they undertook a major revamp and later on started to show curated videos during Halloween.
According to a report by TechCrunch, the curated videos like the one for Halloween were so popular, the team behind the compilations started coming up with several themes for each day. Instagram’s communications manager also told Instagram that these curated videos, known as Spotlight are “where you go to discover things you don’t follow but might end up following.” It is a strategy to keep the over 400 million users hooked to the platform which is vital to prevent the user experience from turning stale quick. Snapchat too has different lenses too every day to spice up your selfies so that you won’t get bored with the feature.
So how are these videos arranged? Well, when you go to the Explore tab, there will be a theme, like the above one cutely named “Odd Couple Animals.” After viewing the specific photo in the reel, you can go ahead and share it (most likely on Instagram Direct) or view the post so that you can like the photo or follow the account. Interesting enough, the photos will advance automatically like how you would have set on PowerPoint so they will be no need to scroll.
Currently, I was not able to see this feature in this locale. Curated photos feature is still yet to be rolled out too, so it will definitely take some time for them for us to enjoy them in this part of the world.
