Instagram Says, “My Bad”

On December 27, Instagram rolled out a major design change that went over like a lead balloon with users, forcing the popular social media service to immediately pull the plug.

Just what was the change?  Well, it seems that Instagram users want to stay vertical, in their scrolling feature, that is.  Instagram changed their usual up/down scrolling method of viewing content to a horizontal, left/right, sort of “story-like” approach. Instagram initially tested the design in October, exclusively on the Explore page, but boy did users flip out, taking to Twitter and other social media outlets to vent their absolute hatred of the sudden switch.

In response, Instagram not only immediately ix-nayed the itch-sway, their newly appointed head honcho Adam Mosseri took to Twitter himself to put out a major mea culpa for the tech faux pas. “Supposed to be a very small test that went broad by accident. Should be fixed now. If you’re still seeing it simply restart the app. Happy holidays! ?” This was followed up by a tweet from the official Instagram account which read, “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal.”

A bug, huh?  Oh-kay, if by a “bug” you really mean a colossal error in reading the room.   But hey, they fixed it, and pretty damn fast, too, showing that they are at least super responsive to their users.

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Photo Credit: Gustavo Frazao / Shutterstock.com