Instagram announces explore page, with trending tags and places, and more powerful search

Instagram has announced two major updates. One is to its explore feature, adding trending tags and places, and the other is making its search more powerful and easier to find people, places, and tags.

According to Instagram, 70-million photos and videos are posted to the platform every day. It is clear from this that seeing all of them is impossible and even tracking back to see all of them is like navigating a minefield. With the new changes, things are about to get better.

“We’ve completely reimagined the Explore page to make discovery on Instagram immediate and effortless.” The company says.

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Explore now surfaces trends as they emerge in real time. The trends are events and conversations both near and around the globe. How the search will show these up is not yet clear.

Another addition on the explore now page is that users will now find new curated collections that will be updated regularly, featuring interesting accounts and places, from musicians and extreme athletes to stunning architecture and gorgeous beaches. A move similar to Twitter’s which it launched a few days ago.

Improved search, the other feature that has received an update, is a much needed update. For one searching for people is not as smooth and effective as it should be. The company says it has “dramatically improved the ability to find what users are looking for”.

The update is really impressive that it allows users to search for locations around the world, and if the photos and videos exist from the location, view them. Furthermore, this can be done if one searches a particular place in any location. Searching for a location though and not a specific place might bombard one with too much content.

As Instagram puts it, searching for a location will allow users to “get a look inside that hot new restaurant or experience your favourite music festival”. If one searches a popular place, chances are that there will be a lot of photos and videos to go through and not all relevant. This is why the specific searches will be far more useful.

The new top search also lets you search across people, places and tags all at once.

These updates to explore are only available in the United States. The rest of the world will get the feature has been fine tuned to work well in other countries.