The clock is Tikking.
Instagram is making a host of sweeping changes in a bid to attract TikTok users as the future of that app hangs in the balance.
TikTok temporarily shut down after the Supreme Court upheld a law that required ByteDance to divest its stake in the company by Jan. 19 or face a national ban.
On Monday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that suspended the ban for 75 days to find a U.S. buyer.
In the meantime, Instagram is acting quickly to get the so-called “TikTok refugees” to migrate to the Meta-owned app.
Here are just some of their new features:
A new video editing app
On Sunday, the same day that TikTok temporarily was banned in the U.S., Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced a new app called Edits, a video-editing app that could take the place of the ByteDance-owned video-editing app CapCut — which was also banned alongside TikTok.
“Now, there’s a lot going on in the world right now and no matter what happens, we think it’s our job to create the most compelling creative tools for those of you who make videos for not just Instagram but for platforms out there, as we can,” Mosseri said in his announcement video.
Mosseri added that the app is “not for people who are using desktop apps. It’s not for people who look for templates. It’s for people who use their phone to make short-form videos.”
The app will be a “full suite of creative tools” with a dedicated tab for inspiration and trending audio, a tab for keeping track of ideas and rough drafts, the ability to share drafts with friends, and insights and analytics for Reels — a.k.a short videos that are posted to Instagram.
It will also offer artificial intelligence animation, generative captions, as well as overlays like text, sound and voice effects, filters and stickers. Edits will allow for videos up to 10 minutes long, according to the App Store description.
As of now, Edits is available for free pre-order download from the App Store, and won’t officially launch until February, Mosseri said.
However, the App Store lists an expected availability date of March 13.
Mosseri added that the first version of the app will be “incomplete,” though it will be updated over time.
Tall profile grids
Instagram’s profile grids now display all posts as rectangles with a 4:5 ratio rather than squares, — a change that rolled out this past weekend.
“I know some of you really like your squares. And square photos are sort of the heritage of Instagram. But at this point, most of what’s uploaded, both photos and videos, are vertical in their orientation,” Mosseri said in an Instagram story on Friday, The Verge reported.
After the initial rollout, Mosseri posted to his feed on Monday that he received “both positive and quite negative” feedback about the change and shared more details of how the grid will change in the coming months.
“We started with the tall grid because most photos and videos that are uploaded to Instagram at this point are vertical and rectangles do a better job showing off those photos and videos,” he wrote in the caption.
“But I know some of you spend a lot of time tweaking your grids and this blew all of that up, so we’re going to improve the ability to customize those thumbnails.”
The Instagram post shows how the app will allow people to change and crop the thumbnail of the post that appears on the grid.
Highlights on the grid
In the same Instagram post, Mosseri shared that they are looking into moving story highlights into the grid, making a separate tab for them — just like the separate tabs for Reels and tagged photos — rather than keeping them as circles at the top of your profile.
“Highlights are a great way to showcase your favorite stories, but they are visually complicated and push your grid down,” Mosseri wrote. “In order to maintain creator control we’re building a tool so you can re-order your entire grid and make it whatever you want.”
He added that “as a bonus,” Instagram will add the ability to post directly to the grid and “bypass [the home] feed entirely,” meaning the post will be shown on your profile, but won’t go to your followers’ home page.
Mosseri previously said on an Instagram Live that the point of this was to get more content “above the fold” — though he admitted that “this one is contentious” and he “might not be able to make it work,” according to Mashable.
Friends on Reels
Now your friends can see what Reels you like on Instagram.
A new feature in the Reels tab will allow you to see which friends have liked or commented on a video — similar to the chaotic old Instagram “activity” tab that was removed in 2019.
“We want Instagram to not only be a place where you consume entertaining content, but one where you connect over that content with friends with shared interests,” Mosseri said in a video announcement.
In the top right of the tab, there will be profile pictures of a few friends in the top right corner, and when you tap on it, there will be a “dedicated feed” of Reels that your friends have liked — and you’ll be able to see which friends specifically liked the Reel.
“We’re doing this because we want Instagram to be not just a lean-back experience but a participatory one, a social one, one where you actually explore your interests with your friends,” Mosseri explained.