Facebook To Test Instagram-Like"Popular Photos"

Facebook is trying to copy the best features of Instagram while constantly link the photo-sharing site back to it.

The company is reportedly testing a feature named Popular Photos, which is an endless show of photos from friends right under a full-size image. What users have is an Instagram-like look within Facebook.

What Popular Photos does is to offer an anxiety-free experience that does not have links you have to click through or texts you have to read. It is just a stream of photos going by in front of you.

Facebook’s text and link-based newsfeed may look tiring sometimes, in comparison with the picture and video approach of TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat. Users have to pay an effort to understand the feed, by tapping or reading, rather than understanding the content instantly. That kind of experience is unwelcomed for many users who have been drained after a day of work or study.

In October, Facebook’s spokesperson confirmed that the company was testing with a feature called Popular Photos. The trial stage has ended, but now the team is doing more tests.

Facebook said nothing on its motive to add the photo hub, given that it has already had messaging, Stories, and IGTV-like video section. With the addition of this new feature, the site will be a complete copy of Instagram.

Here is the way Popular Photos works. For now, when users see a photo in the News Feed, they can open it in full screen with a dark theater-like background. If they scroll or swipe on the picture, they will be brought back to where they came from. With Popular Photos, Facebook will give you more photos to see after you scroll past the first one.

When they scroll past the title of Popular Photos, users will see more images appearing and a label reading “See More Photos” to encourage them to swipe to see more photos from friends, family, and the accounts they follow.

Much like Instagram, Facebook shortens the captions after they reach 65 characters so the overall feed does not look too wordy. The dark background also helps to keep users hooked on the images in front of them.

Back in 2014, Facebook started to offer a similar function for videos. When users scroll past one video that opened in full-screen, the recommended ones will appear. You may know it as the “More Videos” feature. As it shows ads, Facebook may also allow advertisements with this testing feature to monetize the extra traffic.

Facebook does not try to hide its intention to exploit Instagram’s popularity to benefit itself. On the navigation sidebar of Instagram, users now see the Open Facebook button that directs them back to the mothership.

Some previous attempts of the social network are displaying Facebook’s alerts right in the Notification tab of Instagram, as well as a red counter for the notifications from Facebook in the three-line button on the picture-sharing site.

The company also asks users to like the pages on Facebook of those they follow on Instagram. And when Instagram’s loading screen appears, you can see the texts reading “from Facebook” as well as the new controversial logo of the company.

Facebook has been around for 15 years and it is trying its best to stay relevant as the world changes and more competitors emerge. The site has already had features copied from Snapchat. Along with ephemeral videos and photos on its app. Now, it is exploiting its own subsidiary Instagram to stay ahead of the competition.