Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels

Post by cpach » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

meristem wrote: post #210

dmix wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing/business side always demand prime real-estate to push 'features' instead of just blending them into the UI. This is extra-apparent on mobile apps but FB did it on their website for years (I haven't seen what it looks like recently). It's not easy to say no as a designer but the best companies are the ones most capable of keeping things as focused on primary UX flows as possible. TikTok figured this out by m…

Let’s ship features! To heck with what users may need or want!

Post by goldforever » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

thekyle wrote: post #39

OzzyB wrote: post #9

Quoting from the excellent blog post[1] submitted here yesterday[0] that stole my morning workout time: " Instagram is some strange hybrid mix of social and interest graph, and now it’s also a jumble of formats, with a Stories feed relegated to a top bar in the app while the more stagnant and less active original feed continues to run vertically as the default. Messaging is pushed to a separate pane and also served b…

I think the trouble is that it's really hard to start a new social network from scratch, so when Facebook wants to compete in a new segment they just tack on the feature to one of their existing social products. However, as you pointed out this leads to feature creep and pushes users to simpler platforms. What I would do to solve this problem if I were at Facebook is to start new features out on an established platfo…

Post by bobwernstein » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #38

I still cannot believe that Twitter bought Vine, couldn't figure out what to do with it, shut it down, then had to bring it back as a read-only archive because there was so much popular outcry. At the time, the story was that all these other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat were adopting short videos, so Vine could not compete anymore. But obviously it was possible to compete, since an entirely new service --Tik…

Post by kyawzazaw » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

jug wrote: post #60

surround wrote: post #47

Facebook launched Lasso as its own app two years ago. I’m not sure if there were any differences between it and TikTok, but either way, it failed miserably. https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut...

FB also has a Stories feature as Instagram, in turn from Snapchat, but I barely see anyone use it while everyone and their cat (literally) use Instagram Stories. Also, FB took a more advanced friend list concept from Google+ but few use or know how it works. (Like how “Acquintances” are your friends but they are pushed down by the algorithm) It is apparent that it’s hard to just shoehorn different usage patterns due…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #130

dimitrios1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it really feels like IBM in the sense that it had some really amazing engineers that built the company up, and after they left, they have just been resting on those laurels ever sense. What have they truly innovated recently?

The division they have helped foment in the US is pretty impressive.