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If there’s any question that competing in the short video space and expanding your buying powers are top priorities on Instagram, the latest app redesign should remove all doubts.
The Facebook-owned company has revamped its design to highlight these areas with a new set of tabs, the company revealed Thursday on its official blog.
The redesign isn’t really surprising, given that the company hinted at the changes when it tested different designs in September. But for an application that doesn’t constantly change in appearance, interface changes like this speak volumes about what the company believes is important.
“This year, with the pandemic and much of the world sheltering in its place, we have seen an explosion of short and entertaining videos on Instagram,” wrote Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram. “We’ve also seen an incredible amount of shopping online, with more and more people shopping online and young people looking for recommendations on what to buy from their favorite creators.”
He casts the new Store tab as a place where inspiration and commerce meet, with an effect that could also help small businesses. Users can hit the tab to find personalized recommendations, editors’ picks selected by Instagram’s @shop channel, videos that can be bought, and new product collections, among other things.
The point of the Reels tab, obviously, is to draw attention to the nascent supply of short videos.
Mosseri made no specific reference to TikTok, but Reels, from a month ago, is largely considered Insta’s answer to the Gen Z social phenomenon. Rival is still a popular app on Apple’s App Store, and Instagram is not. you have hidden the fact that you are exploring a deeper drive to buy.
Thursday was supposed to mark a watershed moment for TikTok, as the Trump-imposed deadline for its China-based parent company to sell the app to American companies has arrived. But so far, there has been no decisive move against TikTok, prompting a last minute appeal from the developer to void the order.
On Thursday, the US Department of Commerce said it will not enforce the application’s shutdown order, citing an earlier opinion from a federal judge in Pennsylvania. Last month, the judge wrote that the Commerce Department likely overreached when it tried to ban TikTok transactions.
The app is still in Apple’s top 10 free apps.
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