It’s New Year’s Eve, which means that your Instagram feed – if it looks like mine – is probably full of people posting the “first nine” grades of their most liked photos this year. But surprisingly, for another year, everyone will turn to incomplete-looking apps and third-party websites to create them. Because, once again, Instagram has failed to offer an official and automated way to cure images within the app.
As someone who personally likes to use the top nine format to look back on a year of good pictures, I am totally confused by this. Users seem love joining the collages to remember the posts from the previous year. Instagram has even offered grid tools to post photos for your story in different layouts. It is Certainly has access to the data.
Just look at the popularity of Spotify’s Wrapped year in review feature, which has come to dominate December with users displaying their most streamed music, genres and statistics. Instagram needs to be aware of the trend – Instagram stories are one of the most popular places where users show their musical taste.
In addition, Instagram is owned by Facebook, the pioneer in automated video with annual review. Facebook uses the power of algorithms to compile snapshot (though occasionally depressing) annual videos and “friend’s birthday” highlights. Allowing users to automatically create and share the top nine posts seems like a chore. But 2020 is going by without even a nod to the idea.
Instead, users get third-party services, dozens of which shoot at the app store’s charts each year. These services often ask users to provide personal information, such as email addresses, or insist on pasting images with horrible watermarks or logos.
It’s easy to imagine how Instagram could streamline this process and even fix some of the weaknesses in most third-party options, such as the inability to generate nine major grids for private accounts.
And yet, it looks like 2020 will end with Instagram dropping the ball on this seemingly obvious feature. I suppose there is always 2021.