Some users report that they are seeing chronological stories on their Snapchat feed once more.
When social media apps started meddling with user’s feeds, a lot of people were not happy about it. Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat all redesigned their feeds to reflect algorithmically-sorted posts.
Today, Snapchat users have reported that they are seeing back the classic reverse chronological order on their feeds. This means they are now seeing posts from friends as they are being posted. This is opposed to seeing Stories of people they watch or interact with the most first – something that last year’s redesign brought about.
It is still unclear whether this update is only a test or a full-scale roll-out to all users.
When Snapchat first announced the redesign last year, CEO Evan Spiegel explained their reasoning. “We are separating the social from the media, and taking an important step forward towards strengthening our relationships with our friends and our relationships with the media.”
The company actually saw growth improve when it switched to the algorithm-sorted feed in Q4 2017. However, it was not great for everyone. It was annoying to heavy users who prefer to catch Stories the moment they’re relevant, rather than hours later.
But switching back to the old system may not be as bad as it was before. Last year’s redesign included moving celebrities’ and brands’ Stories to the Discover section. This means a user’s chronological feed would now likely show posts from people he or she actually cares about.
Snapchat is not alone in reconsidering their feed format. Last month, Instagram also announced in a statement that they are changing their algorithm to make things a little “more timely”.
Let’s wait and see if Facebook does the same.
