A popular feature that Instagram removed nearly a decade ago is making its grand return.
“They said it would never happen…” tweeted the @Instagram account on Twitter.
“Twitter Card previews start rolling out TODAY.”
As you can see in the Instagram tweet embedded above, the Facebook–er, Meta-owned photo-sharing social media app is once again allowing link previews from the service to populate inside tweets on Twitter.
Long-time Instagram and Twitter users might remember a similar feature from long ago.
Twitter users were once able to post a link to an Instagram photo and have a complete embed of that picture appear within their tweet. There was no need to send your Twitter followers to Instagram. The full photo was right there in the tweet.
In December 2012, Instagram removed that feature. The company made it pretty clear at the time that the decision was due to the fact that users were able to view Instagram content in full on one of its competitor’s services.
“We’ve decided that right now, what makes sense, is to direct our users to the Instagram Web site,” said an Instagram executive at the time.
It’s unclear why Instagram has decided to bring back link previews now. Are Twitter Card previews now a necessary part of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse? Does the company need some positive user sentiment among all the ongoing negative press from the Facebook whistleblower leaks?
Regardless of the reason, users will also notice that the Twitter Card previews of today are different from the full-photo embeds of yesteryear. Instagram links will now show link previews much like how YouTube links appear on Twitter.
While not as good as what it used to be, it’s certainly better than what Instagram links looked like on Twitter for the past 9 years: hyperlinked text.
