Snapchat redesigns everything to distance itself from Instagram

"Social media" is the term we use everyday, but one that's no longer relevant in the eyes of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel.Starting from tomorrow, Snapchat will launch a massive redesign to separate the social from the media. Users will find all messages and stories from friends to the left of the camera, sorted by who they talk to and view most.Under new algorithms, contents will also be aligned based on the users interests, not on the interests of "friends". It offers a auto-advance, so users can watch everyone’s stories in a row, but with best friends, not people who post the most first.Right of the camera will be all the premium publishers and influencers that users follow, and aggregated stories from search and snap map in the discover section, sorted by users' past viewing behavior.This means more likes does not mean higher reach on Snapchat.The new algorithms follow Netflix's approach, which uses machine-learning to analyse what subscribers have watched in the past, and recommend content based on that behaviour. Spiegel said this form of machine learning personalisation gives users a set of choices that does not rely on free media or friend recommendations and is less susceptible to outside manipulation.Plus, he reassures viewers that they will optimise the algorithm to provide multiple sources of content and different points of view."It's vitally important that future content feeds are built on top of a human-curated supply of content – rather than just anything that surfaces on the Internet. Curating content in this way will change the social media model and also give us both reliable content and the content we want," Spiegel wrote on Axios.The algorithm redesign is seemingly a reaction to recent industry uproars over how fake news has been fuelling social media.Watch the new Snapchat in 60 seconds:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1R-eHSkfM