Instagram Offers New Explore Tab for Real-Time Coverage, US Users Will Use the Feature First

Instagram has real-time coverage of what is happening in the world. Only now, it intend to exploit this ability with its launch of a revised Explore tab.

Some of the features that you will find include curated content, Trending Tags and Places as well as a new Places Search.

Not only can you look for photos related to a particular topic but also photos based on important themes selected by Instagram’s team.

Twitter and Periscope are trying to make a splash in real-time media but with Instagram already having 300 million users with 70 million pictures being added everyday, this could turn out to be more than just being a platform where you get to see more than pictures. In fact, it can turn out to be your window to just about anywhere.

This new Explore tab will be released in the United States first but it won’t be long before people from just about anywhere can look for people, tags and places from this simple textbox.

While Instagram began to personalize the Explore tab with top photos and videos, the potential that it could exploit with real-time media and the 70 million photos people upload everyday was completely missing.

That said, the team has already been curating pictures from trending topics where some of them have been used for popular publications. For now, users in the United States can immediately pick up relevant topics whether it’s photos and video from the Nepal Earthquake or even the Baltimore unrest.

As Instagram project manager Blake Barnes puts it so perfectly, in explaining the Explore feature, “We can look at all these festivals and concerts, but this is also pretty remarkable because you can see all these people putting sandbags down after a flood, for example. You really get to feel what they are experiencing, and it really brings you into the moment.”