Instagram doesn’t just have TikTok to worry about. There’s a new generation of apps launching left and right that are coming for the Meta-owned platform’s crown.
Take Lapse, for example. The photo-sharing app hit the top of the US Apple App Store charts in September and remains popular. Its premise is simple: take photos using the app like a disposable camera, wait for the picture to “develop,” and then catalog your photos into automatic photo dumps.
Photo dumps, if you recall, are a uniquely Instagram phenomenon that grew in popularity out of the cries for Instagram to feel more authentic — like the old days.
Lapse is one of many newer apps that are implicitly criticizing Instagram’s pressurized social-media experience. “Lapse is for Friends not Followers,” Lapse’s app store description reads.
From BeReal to newcomer ID by Amo, which launched this weekend from the French team behind the Snapchat-acquired Zenly, these new apps are zeroing in on Instagram’s apparent friend gap that has fueled outcry from everyday users and celebrities as famous as Kylie Jenner.
“You are more than a profile pic and a grid of edited photos,” the description for ID by Amo says. “Welcome to amo. Just friends.”
Instagram seems to have gotten the message.
Over the last several months, Instagram has been testing and rolling out several features to bring us closer to our friends. And yes, that means more “Close Friends” tools.
Earlier this month, Instagram expanded the Close Friends feature, which lets users curate content for a smaller follower pool, to the feed. For users — like myself — who have several Instagram accounts for different purposes or audiences, this is huge. No need to post to the “finsta” anymore. You can post your memes and photo dumps directly to your grid and only your close friends can see them.
And Instagram may have learned its lesson in its battle against TikTok: While Instagram was scrutinized by some for being late to launch its TikTok-copycat feature, Reels, the platform seems to be a bit more proactive these days in chasing the trends.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed that Instagram is working on two internal prototypes that could push some new apps to the sidelines. One appears to be called “Your Space” and will be a “private space within your public profile,” per a reverse-engineered prototype discovered by Alessandro Paluzzi. The second internal prototype harkens back to the days of Facebook-versus-Myspace with an Instagram-native “Wall” that lets followers leave text notes on a user’s page, per another prototype shared by Paluzzi.
And those haven’t been the only recent features that seem to take aim at rivals.
Here are a few Instagram rollouts that feel … familiar:
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