For both Facebook and Instagram, "Year in Review" features have been launched by parent company Meta.
Instagram is joining in on the year-in-review fun as we near the conclusion of 2021. This time, the company is introducing a new Playback tool that summarizes up to ten of your top articles from the previous year, making it simple to look back on 2021.
Instagram Year in Review 2021
As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook users can now share their customized "Year Together" card on Facebook, which highlights the friends, feelings, locations and people who meant the most to them in 2021.
The new in-feed experience curates a shareable card based on people's years on the network. The new function will be available worldwide beginning December 11 and will be available until December 30th.
On the other hand, for Instagram, users can add a bespoke end-of-year "Playback" time capsule to their IG Story. Users can edit and select up to 10 stories to share with their followers using the Stories Archive function.
Stories Archive From Instagram
Users must have posted at least three stories this year or have Stories Archive switched on to be eligible for this feature. The platform will make suggestions for Playback posts, but users will have the opportunity to choose what they want to share. In their Instagram feeds, users will notice a message encouraging them to make their own Playback. Users will have access to the new feature for a few weeks.
Instagram users have already developed their own version of an end-of-year highlight by posting their best nine photographs in a photo grid. Instagram is introducing an in-app method for users to produce shareable end-of-year content this year.
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Year-End Features
The new features on Facebook and Instagram are totally configurable, allowing users to add or remove information and posts as they see fit. These two capabilities will be available to all users worldwide within the next few days, according to Meta.
The launch of the new features coincides with the growing popularity of shareable end-of-year recaps, courtesy of Spotify's annual Wrapped experience, which is extensively shared across social media each year.
Facebook and Instagram have joined a slew of other digital behemoths in creating their own versions of the popular feature. This week, Reddit launched tailored summaries with statistics on users' activities, while Snapchat is slated to publish its "Year End Story" later this month.
Instagram's Top 9 Grid
Furthermore, users will also get a message in their Instagram feed urging them to make a Playback, and if they come across a 2021 Story they want to include, they may click on the "2021" sticker to watch and share it in their Playback.
Although Playback is expected to be popular, especially among power Instagram users who want to re-promote their favorite Stories, it's odd that Instagram hasn't adopted a simpler end-of-year feature that has previously proven popular: the "top nine" photo grid.
For numerous years, third-party applications have offered Instagram users variations of the top nine end-of-year photo grids, but typically at the cost of personal information like email addresses. Instagram offers built-in capabilities for users to create photo grids, but no year-in-review version has been released yet. Even Facebook, which is owned by the same firm as Instagram, has an automated look-back video feature.
