Instagram is rolling out a new feature called broadcast channels that lets users send text or photo updates directly to followers, the latest attempt by the Meta Platforms Inc. division to fine-tune the service.<\/p>\n
Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced the news on his Instagram account Thursday by creating a channel of his own.<\/p>\n
The idea is to offer another way to share posts without having to put them on a potentially cluttered main Instagram feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m starting this channel to share news and updates on all products and tech we\u2019re building at Meta,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis will be the place I share Meta product news first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta is billing the new feature as a tool for creators to more directly reach people who want to hear their updates.<\/p>\n
As the company competes more fiercely with the video app TikTok \u2014 Instagram has a rival product called Reels \u2014 it has also tailored its algorithm to show people more content about their interests.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s drawn complaints that users aren\u2019t seeing enough posts from the people they actually follow.<\/p>\n
Channels may offer another way for creators to reach their audience directly without relying solely on Instagram\u2019s feed algorithm.<\/p>\n
Instagram has arguably become Meta\u2019s most important service in recent years.<\/p>\n
Not only is it the company\u2019s best bet against TikTok, but Instagram is a major revenue driver and responsible for much of Meta\u2019s business growth.<\/p>\n
That role is even more important given the company\u2019s broader focus on building the so-called metaverse, which has been an expensive endeavor.<\/p>\n
The channels launch also comes at an important time for Meta\u2019s overall business.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg recently dubbed 2023 the \u201cyear of efficiency\u201d and has pledged to cut some middle managers and better prioritise product efforts to help the company move faster.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, it shuttered a live shopping feature to \u201cfocus on products and features that provide the most value.\u201d<\/p>\n
The channels feature will eventually come to Meta\u2019s Messenger and Facebook services, Zuckerberg said.<\/p>\n
Instagram is rolling out a new feature called broadcast channels that lets users send text or photo updates directly to followers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":480675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[161,10424,1767,73842],"class_list":["post-480673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-meta-platforms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}