Instagram today rolled out new Following and Favorites feed options, allowing users to sort their feeds to see content posted chronologically from the people they follow or content just from their favorite people.
The new Following option is a traditional chronological feed, and it displays the latest posts from the accounts that each Instagram user follows in reverse chronological order. Favorites shows the latest posts from a selected group of accounts that are followed, also in chronological order.
Favorites shows you the latest from accounts that you choose, like your best friends and favorite creators. In addition to this view, posts from accounts in Favorites will also show up higher in your home feed.
Following shows you posts from the people you follow. Both Favorites and Following will show you posts in chronological order, so you can quickly catch up on recent posts.
Instagram is rolling out the new chronological feeds as of today, and they can be accessed by tapping on the Instagram logo in the top left corner of the home page to choose either Following or Favorites.
Following incorporates all Instagram accounts that a person follows, while Favorites includes up to 50 accounts added to the user's favorites list. Posts from accounts marked as favorites will also show up higher in the standard home feed and will be marked with a star icon.
It's worth noting that the standard Home view, which is Instagram's feed ranked using a proprietary algorithm, is still the default option. Instagram told CNET that it believes that "people have a better experience on Instagram with a ranked feed," so the company does not plan to be "defaulting people into a chronological feed." Because the Home view is still the standard view, the new Following and Favorites feeds cannot replace it as the default.
