STORYTELLING-FIRST DESIGN

As with other social networks that grow, Instagram broadened its formats early on to head off several format-based asymptotes. Non-square photos and videos with gradually lengthening time limits have broadened the use cases and, more importantly, removed some level of production friction.

The move to copy Snapchat's Stories format was the next giant... See more

For a media format to be widely adopted, it’s important for it to be easy to create content with. Similarly, it helps if that format can be used to tell rich, complex narratives. So more simplicity and more storytelling leads to a more valuable and popular media format. But here’s the rub: simplicity and storytelling are inversely correlated. The m... See more

Media formats end up trading off simplicity for storytelling and vice versa as more storytelling requires more complexity, and more simplicity limits storytelling abilities.