Faced with the obvious dislike of users for the Friends tab, TikTok would consider removing this tab in favor of another experience, rather close to that offered by Instagram’s Explorer. Explanations.
Like many social networks, TikTok regularly changes its formula in the hope of retaining its users… And attracting new ones. However, the last choices made by the application did not really please the community. We refer here to the progressive disappearance of the Discover tabyet very popular, in favor of the new Friends tab.
Through Discover, trending and recent videos, hashtags, creators, and sponsored content were easily discovered. Converselythe Friends tab is a personalized news feed dedicated to your friends’ videos. In other words, you will find there the content of the subscribers to whom you are also subscribed as well as that of other accounts suggested by the TikTok community. On paper, the idea was therefore to slightly change the formula of the social network by putting focus on content shared and appreciated by our loved ones.
Also to read : TikTok wants to prevent children from using its app for more than an hour a day
TikTok backtracks on the Friends tab
But obviously, this did not take with users who mostly regret the loss of the Discover tab. Since its demise, TikTok has seen a significant increase in viewership of videos from creators who compile the latest trends.
According to information shared by our colleagues from TechRadarTikTok is currently conducting a test to replace the Friends tab through a new experience similar to Instagram’s Explore page. This functionality, spotted by the company Watchful.ai, will take the form of a page where users will be able to scroll and explore videos/content arranged in a grid.
This experience, called Explore Feed, is very similar to what Instagram already offers with the Explore page. With the difference that the interface is so far less attractive. We feel that there is still work to be done on this point, between these white spaces, the use of different frames and formats and the low number of videos displayed (4 against 12 on Instagram). But again, remember that this is a test phase and that the functionality is subject to change.
