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Social Media giant Facebook has been the top player among social sites since their establishment, but maintaining this #1 spot has branched out beyond their little blue logo. Back in 2012 Facebook purchased the increasingly popular Instagram app for a very healthy price. With Instagram now in their power, Facebook continues to own a huge majority of the market without many people even noticing. I recall the headlines of Facebooks purchase a few years ago, but since then went about using Instagram seeing no difference and quite honestly forgetting it was now a Facebook product.

Until lately, over the past few months when I open my Instagram apps I’ve began to noticed striking similarities between “new” Instagram features and the already existing Facebook features. I’ve noticed these overlaps across three different categories, but this may just be the beginning.

Who you follow - Scrolling through my Instagram feed I could help but stopped when I came to several small boxes horizontally crossing my screen. The different size and orientation of them caught my eye and as I started to scroll through the faces I realized they were suggested followers… mirroring exactly the suggested friends section of my Facebook page. The same as Facebook, I scrolled through the suggestions and recognized a few and added none. At a later time on the app, while stalking a girl, I clicked into her profile to find a list of my friends who also follow her written in light gray on her profile. Very similar to the mutual friends listed on a Facebook profile, I found this aspect helpful on Instagram. With people using usernames that aren’t their exact name it’s sometime helpful to confirm they’re who you hope they are.

Advertisements – This one is no surprise, if you have the app you’ve noticed them. It was only a matter of time before ads found their way to Instagram, but they don’t bother me much. I feel Instagram does a great job integrating their ads into their content so it doesn’t inhibit my user experience and I honestly find myself stopping and looking at Instagram ads more than those on any other site. To be honest I feel that I saw a shift in Facebook ads following the start of Instagram ads, maybe they learned something from their new app. I feel that Facebook ads have begun to become much more integrated into my experience in the form of promotions and product placement in videos being shared on my newsfeed.

How you “like” - Now this appeared and left… hopefully for good. This past week I couldn’t help but notice some testing going on in my Instagram app, because I yelled “omg I hate this” to my roommate who then opened her app and said she had no idea what I was talking about. For one night my Instagram likes began to be formatted the same as Facebook likes “Blabla , Blabla2 and 123 Other people likes this photo” spacing out the “likes” like enough to catch my attention and throw off my visual experience. I was irrationally mad about something that has no impact on my life until the next day when it returned to normal.

The real question is will this really change or boost Instagram usage? I assume that Facebook would only think to implement these ideas if they had seen success with them on Facebook. But as Facebook begins to die out and users find interest elsewhere, i.e Instagram, will this just bring frustration to see just what you are trying to escape? I personally feel like it’s in Facebooks best interest to try to keep the two apps true to their original feel and continue to allow people to associate them as two different brands in their mind. This avoids driving away Facebook “protestors”, and allows others who are just looking for a different experience to continue to find that. But then again, I did just add a new suggested follower.