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Instagram is developing a “Blend” feature that creates a special feed of recommended Reels for you and your friend. The company told TechCrunch on Friday that the feature is an internal prototype and is not being tested externally.
The feature was first discovered by a reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, which regularly spots social media features in development before they’re officially released. According to a screenshot posted to X by Paluzzi, Blend will include “reel recommendations based on the reels you’ve shared with each other and your interests on the reels.”
In other words, if you invite a friend to Blend, Instagram will create a personalized feed of Reels it thinks you’ll both be interested in. Blend appears to be somewhat similar to the functionality of Spotify of the same name, which launched in 2021 and allows two people to combine their favorite songs into one shared playlist.
The screenshot indicates that Blends will be private between you and the other user and that you will be able to leave Blend at any time. Instagram has not shared any specific details about the feature and whether Blends will be constantly updated with new recommendations or whether it will be updated after a certain period of time.
This feature is designed to enable users to discover new Reels together, which will be a way for Instagram to boost Reels discovery and watch time. Since people are already sending Reels to each other via direct messages, Instagram will now use this data to proactively recommend and show Reels that it thinks a pair of users would enjoy.
As with any other prototype, it’s unknown when or if Instagram plans to launch the feature externally.
If released, Blend will give Instagram Reels users access to a fun and collaborative feature not available on its rival platform, TikTok. Although the two products are quite similar, introducing Blend could give Instagram a slight competitive advantage over TikTok, albeit a small competitive advantage given that TikTok still largely dominates the short-form video market.
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