Behind the scenes, Instagram has rolled out a super cool new feature to creators—Instagram Blend. This lets them create a customized Reels experience unique to them and their friends! Pretty exciting stuff this new addition will significantly deepen social experiences on the platform. It takes people back to the fundamental idea of connecting with close friends and sharing life’s moments.
To generate a Blend, users need to start a one-on-one or multi-user group direct message (DM) chat. To start, at the top of their chat, they’ll see a Blend icon that has been newly added. By deepening this experience with the addition of a Feed icon, users can quickly begin building their own customized Reels feed. This new feature is reminiscent of Spotify’s Blend, which allows users to merge their musical preferences into a joint playlist.
Blend does provide a vibrant and colorful experience, as it refills every day with always new content. This means that users and their friends will never run out of new, fun videos to watch together. Similar to TikTok, which is still Instagram’s largest competitor, the launch of Blend highlights how much Instagram is trying to make the app more about social interaction. The personalized aspect of it is unique to Instagram, making it stand apart in the cutthroat industry of social media.
The launch of Blend today isn’t a surprise, though. In March 2024, TechCrunch covered Instagram’s new photo-hiding feature. The app is trying to increase time spent on the platform by rolling out new features to keep users engaged. With Blend, Instagram hopes to jumpstart that community creativity again. This exciting new development allows community members to share and discover content with each other in a much more personalized fashion.
Users can continue their Blends by returning to the DM conversation and tapping the Blend icon a second time. This unique feature allows for all friends to enjoy the media being shared on their own time, creating a new collaborative shared-screening experience.
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