Instagram is rolling out a “Blend” feature that creates a private stream of Reels recommended for you and a friend. The company told TechCrunch on Friday that the feature is an internal prototype and is not being tested externally.
The feature was first identified by reverse engineering Alessandro Palucci, which regularly discovers social media features in development before their official release. According to a screenshot posted on X by Paluzzi, a Blend will include “Reels Recommendations based on the Reels you’ve shared with each other and your Reels interests.”
In other words, if you invited a friend to a “Blend,” Instagram would create a personalized feed of Reels it thinks you’d both be interested in. Blend appears to be somewhat similar to Spotify’s feature of the same name, which launched in 2021 and allows two people to combine their favorite songs into a shared playlist.
The screenshot indicates that Blends will be private between you and the other user and that you will be able to leave a Blend at any time. Instagram didn’t share specific details about the feature and whether Blends will be constantly updated with new suggestions or if they’ll be updated after a certain amount of time.
The feature is designed to enable users to discover new Reels together, which would be a way for Instagram to boost Reels discovery and watch time. Since people are already DMing each other Reels, Instagram will now use that data to proactively recommend and display Reels that it thinks a pair of users would enjoy.
As with any other prototype, it’s unknown when or if Instagram plans to release the feature externally.
If launched, Blend will give Instagram Reels users access to a fun and collaborative feature not available on its rival platform, TikTok. Although the two products are quite similar, the introduction of “Blend” could give Instagram a slight competitive advantage over TikTok, albeit a small one, given that TikTok continues to largely dominate the small-format video market.
