Instagram rips off yet another service
Not content to rip off just Snapchat, Instagram is going after Pinterest, too.
The Facebook-owned app is adding a new feature that lets users save individual posts into collections. Love flowers? Or gadgets? Or food porn? Now you can save all those posts into their own folders, letting you obsess over them in the most left-brained way possible.
If that sounds just like Pinterest, congratulations, you've figured out Instagram's plan here: to take the primary features of other services and plug them into its app so you have less reason to spend time anywhere else. The main difference between Instagram collections and Pinterest is the former are private, so only you can see them.
Blatant cloning aside, collections aren't a terrible idea.
To save a post into a board... er, collection, just tap and hold the bookmark icon beneath it. From there, you can save into an existing collection or a create a new one. To create a new collection for posts you've already saved, go to your profile, tap the bookmark tab, and then tap the "+" icon in the top-right corner. Now you can select posts to add to it.
Blatant cloning aside, collections aren't a terrible idea. Lots of people look to Instagram influencers for inspiration on things like home decor, personal style, and even just silly memes. So why not offer them a way to better retain and organize the things they like? And if the influencers get more influential in the process, I'm sure they won't complain.
Instagram says 46% of its users have saved at least one post since it introduced the feature in December 2016. That figure doesn't carry a lot of weight, though, since many of those people are likely saving once just to try out the feature, but never doing it again. However, there are no doubt more than a few "power savers" who will view collections as a godsend.
Since the collections are private, there doesn't appear to be a monetization strategy apart from simply making it easier to save and come back to sponsored posts as well. That is, if you even still see those at all.
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
