Well, well, well, it looks like Instagram isn’t the only one trying to look like TikTok. Amazon Inspire, a new feed coming to the Amazon app, looks a whole lot like the mega-popular social media platform.
Amazon Inspire supports both photos and videos (just like TikTok does now, by the way). It lets you scroll other people’s and influencers’ content as mindlessly as you would on TikTok, only you also get to purchase them directly through the app.
Amazon Inspire lets you “easily discover and shop products personalized to your interests from other customers, the latest influencers, and a wide range of brands,” the description reads. The new feature will appear as a lightbulb icon in the Amazon shopping app. From there, it prompts you to select your interests, which will personalize your “shoppable feed” with photos and videos tailored just for you and your paycheck waiting to be spent.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon began testing Inspire with employees this summer and it will begin rolling out to select US users early this month. The same source notes that “the company has also been recruiting influencers to produce content for the feed, along with selections from brands and regular customers.” As you scroll through the content, you’ll be able to buy the items straight from the videos and photos you come across.
Image credits: Amazon
It makes me sad and concerned that so many social media platforms are turning from fun places into giant virtual shopping malls. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok – you name it, all of them have marketplaces, live shopping, and all sorts of ways to kick money out of your pocket. But a shopping app trying to look like a social media app… Well, that’s new. And I can’t say it’s not clever. We’re already used to mindlessly scrolling and possibly buying something through social media. Something tells me that Amazon Inspire will bring together the best (or the worst) of both worlds and make us shop even more while we giggle at funny videos.
[via The Verge]
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