Instagram will now pick and curate videos as per your specific preferences

Instagram has reached the benchmark of 500 million users, and now it is seeking to do something more interesting. After Facebook’s suggestions feature, now Instagram is attempting to know you better, with its brand new feature—Picked for You—that will make the platform more engaging by bringing users some of the best videos on topics of their choice.

The feature will be added to Instagram’s explore tab, bringing you a string of videos that are based on your personal preferences. But Instagram's preference list is far from a cliché, and rather gets down to the very core of what you like and shows you stuff that relates to it.

The fact that you are a movie buff, Instagram knows that, thanks to the time you have spent browsing. But Instagram wants to know your sub-interests, like what genre of movie you enjoy, or which actors you prefer, etc. So similarly, if you are a sports fan who is in love with freestyle soccer, Instagram’s Picked For You will put up videos associated with soccer before you.

Other categories that will be available through the new feature include Oddly Satisfying, Cheerleaders, Dancers, Calligraphy, Softball Players, Cookies, Special Effects, Makeup, Comedians, Barbers, Candy Making, Cake Decorating, Ceramics, Acro Dancers, Comic Book Artists, Pitfalls, Fishing, Hair, Braiding, Gymnasts, Nail Artists, Kawaii, Hair Tutorials, Singers, Bakers, Makeup Tutorials, Ballet Dancers, Trickshots, Artists, Huskies, Freestyle Soccer, Makers & Artisans, Baseball Players, Under the Sea and Skateboarders.

Instagram did something similar when it launched Videos You Might Like feature a while ago. However, the new feature promises to take things to a different, deeper level. The company says that a remarkable increase of 150 percent in the time people spent watching videos on Instagram in the last six months has helped narrow down interest areas. This data is then fed into an algorithm that studies it and then handpicks videos for you. It also has a team of human curators to help the algorithm and do the final picking for videos.

The feature will be rolled out in the US first, but no clear globe was mentioned for launch in other markets.