Through a post on its official blog, Instagram unveiled the updated "Explore" feature that will highlight the most important pictures and videos from all over the world.
With the update, users can now tap the Explore feature to search for real-time news on events as they unfold.
"We've completely reimagined the Explore page to make discovery on Instagram immediate and effortless. The new Explore now surfaces trends as they emerge in real-time, connecting you to events and conversations both near you and around the globe," wrote Instagram on the blog post that detailed the update.
The new Explore feature of Instagram continues the trend of updates that provide users with the capability to follow real-time events. Just last week, a report revealed that Twitter was working on the Project Lightning initiative, which will curate the pictures, videos and tweets of a certain event and package them together for both Twitter users and non-Twitter users to access.
The same trend is the reason why live-streaming services Periscope and Meerkat have become important players in the social media industry, with Periscope acquired by Twitter in March.
"People are hungry for what's happening right now in the world," said Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of Instagram, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Systrom added that media channels, both in regular media and in social media, are in competition to provide users with the shortest gap between an event occurring somewhere in the world and users knowing about that event.
With the new Explore feature, Instagram is looking to provide its user base, numbering about 300 million, with the same form of immediate updates that users are able to get from Twitter. Instagram has also introduced a new feature that will allow users to search for picture by place, people, hashtag, or any combination of such search terms.
The captions of pictures are not searchable though, and while a good number of public figures use Instagram, its reach is not as far as Twitter's.
eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson believes that the updates released by Instagram should allow it to compete better with the live events presentation of Snapchat than with Twitter.
"The way that it's set up, it doesn't feel as immediate as Twitter does, and it doesn't feel as necessary as Twitter does," she said, adding that Instagram could attract more interest on news on entertainment topics such as fashion and celebrities.
The updated Explore button will first appear in the versions of the app for the United States.
