Instagram will overhaul the app so that the first screen on launch shows the short-form video service Reels, not the Feed where friends' posts appear.
Meta said on the 2nd that it will run a user test to make Reels appear first on the mobile app's home screen. Pilot users can choose whether to apply it through an in-app notification, and even after applying it, they can return to the previous screen through settings. The pilot will begin first in Korea and India.
Marking its 15th anniversary this year, Instagram has surpassed 3 billion monthly active users worldwide. In Korea as well, it is widely used, with more than 24 million monthly active users (MAU) based on Mobile Index.
Instagram said that at the center of this growth is Reels, which lets users shoot, edit, and share short videos of up to about three minutes. According to Meta, as of last year, Instagram users worldwide spent half of their time in the app on Reels. Recently, total watch time for Reels also exceeded 1 billion hours.
Short-form content such as Reels and YouTube Shorts has seen explosive popularity among people in their teens and 20s in recent years.
An Instagram official said, "This test was prepared to make it easier to use 'Reels,' one of the features users use the most," adding, "To minimize inconvenience, we allowed users to choose whether to apply the new home screen themselves."
The company emphasized that users have the choice of whether to apply the home screen with Reels placed at the forefront. In Korea, KakaoTalk set it so that users cannot revert to the transfer form after an overhaul, leading to a flood of complaints.
Users who agree to apply the Reels-centered home screen overhaul will go straight to the Reels screen when they open the Instagram mobile app and can enjoy short-form content. The Feed that appeared on the previous home screen can be found in the newly introduced Following tab.
The Following tab consists of three sub-tabs: "All," "Friends," and "Recent."