Instagram full-screen home feed: As it shifts its focus more heavily toward video, Instagram has taken a cue or two from TikTok. The most recent feature being tested by the social media platform is a TikTok-style full-screen, vertical video/post that will provide users with a more “immersive experience.”
Instagram’s goal, according to TechCrunch, is to “bring video front and center,” and this appears to be a “recurring theme” at Meta.
Read more to know the Instagram full-screen home feed.
What is the Instagram full-screen home feed?
Instagram and Instagram Reels continue to get TikTok-like features from Meta. According to the company’s earnings call last week, TikTok-style Reels consume more than 20% of Instagram users’ time.
The social media behemoth is now testing a new feature that lets you view your home feed in full-screen mode. The platform’s goal is to “move video to the front and center.” Thus, Instagram full-screen home feed is now ongoing.
According to TechCrunch, users who are testing the full-screen home feed can still access the discovery tab from the bottom navigation bar. The only noticeable difference appears to be the absence of the Stories bar at the top of the screen.
There is no word on where the Stories bar will be relocated as the discussion still focuses on Instagram full-screen home feed.
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Instagram Stories have been a huge success for the platform, so it’s strange that they’ve vanished from the home screen.
Because this Instagram full-screen home feed feature is not yet available to all users, this may change in the future.
How will the new format work?
You’ll still have access to the bottom navigation bar, which includes the discovery tab, Reels, your own page, and shopping, and the top bar will still include icons for switching accounts, creating a post, checking notifications, and browsing messages with a new full-screen home feed.
The test image does not show where Instagram Stories will appear, but it is assumed that they will continue to appear at the top of the feed as they do now. The stories may still be at the top of the feed because the screenshot was taken after scrolling past the top of the feed.
Instagram Stories, according to TechCrunch, are a “bigger moneymaker” than Reels “because there is more infrastructure in place to sell ads on Stories.”
While Instagram wants to add more ways to make money with Reels, the company stated during its earnings call that the “push to monetise Reels will occur over many years.”
The main point here is that Instagram is still vying for TikTok’s audience. Meta stated during last week’s earnings call that people now spend 20% of their time on Instagram on Reels and 50% of their time on Facebook on videos of all kinds. Perhaps reason why, Instagram full-screen home feed will be developed.
Google’s YouTube Shorts compete with TikTok, and the company announced last week during its earnings call that it has begun testing advertisements on it. “YouTube Shorts generate 30 billion views per day, which is four times more than last year,” according to Google.
What are the benefits of Instagram’s new full-screen vertical video experience?
The Instagram full-screen home feed experiment would combine regular feed posts, stories, and reels into a single stream.
Stories of Instagram full-screen home feed would have a frame bar at the bottom of the screen indicating that you could swipe left to see the other frames, whereas videos would have a progress bar.
It’s a more natural and logical way to present Instagram content, and it’s also consistent with changing TikTok usage trends. Instead of the current format, which shows things in a variety of ways and frequently shows more than one post at a time, the update would allow for algorithmic changes based on how you respond to each post.
TikTok has gained the most significant advantage in this area. Because TikTok clips are displayed in full-screen mode one at a time, everything you do while viewing that post can be used to gauge your reaction to that specific content.
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If you tap ‘Like’ on a clip, watch it through, let it play twice, and swipe back to it, each response is unique to that video, giving TikTok an advantage in determining the specific elements of interest in each clip, which it can then align with your profile to improve your feed recommendations.