We clearly see that Facebook is living vicariously through its seemingly favourite child, Instagram and that is why they have showered a lot of love to it with new features. They have managed to stifle the growth of Snapchat by introducing features we saw from that app.
Facebook is still not done with it and now they are testing something that was literally part of its origin story. According to CNBC, Instagram is testing a new feature which will group students by college communities.
How it works is that Instagram users are prompted via a notification to join a college community so that they can ‘connect with friends.’ When you opt in, you can add your university and graduating year which you can do from the predetermined options. This will grant you access to class based lists of those people that have opted into the community.
The current test is not perfect as the person testing this feature found out that it got the alma mater correct but as an active student, despite not being one. That’s a loophole and since this is a test, it could be fixed later on.
The introduction of this feature shows how Facebook is trying to reinvent itself with Instagram as the cover by targeting the current young people in schools. Facebook targeted the young people back then in 2004 with Facebook and now they are doing the same thing with Instagram and we will see if they will roll this out globally. Instagram already has three distinct sections already, the feed, stories and IGTV and the ecosystem is being used to make sure young people prefer it over the competition.
