Pinterest hasn’t had a 1:1 relationship between events (Follows, Likes, Repins, etc) and notification emails for a while. This isn’t unique to Pinterest. For example, Twitter often “clusters” a group of your new followers into a daily notification email.

Where Pinterest is different, though, is that its on-site activity feed is incomplete/ephemeral. Stuff slides off the timeline, fast. (Compare to Twitter, which lets you scroll back in time until forever ago.)

Pinterest’s blink-and-miss-it activity feed creates some management pains for brands (and social pains for personal use) so it’s great news that they’re improving it.

This hasn’t gotten pushed live yet, so all we have is a screenshot to go on. Honestly, it still looks tough to navigate if you have a lot of events to scroll through, but it’s definitely better than before.

This change is part of a long list of updates/improvements to the new Pinterest UI.

“Recent Activity got an upgrade! It’s now located in the upper right corner. You’ll know when someone follows you or your boards; repins, likes or comments on your pin; or mentions you. You can even see older notifications.”

-Better search: Now we’ll suggest search keywords as you type. If you’re looking for “bacon,” you might see suggestions like “bacon roses” or “bacon desserts” (Yum.)

pinterblog:

Since we announced our new look, we’ve gotten lots of feedback from our community about things you love, things you miss, and things that could make Pinterest even better. Thanks to you, we’ve made some changes that we want to share with you today.

Stuff we’ve brought back. Hooray!

-See it now: After pinning, you can check out related boards or go straight to your pin by clicking “See it now.”

-Pinned from: Lots of you told us you missed the “via” feature, because it helped you find other people with tastes like yours. Now when you click on a pin, you can see who it was pinned from.

-Mentions: You can mention your friends in pin descriptions and comments by typing “@” before their name.

-Find friends: You can see which of your Facebook and Twitter friends are on Pinterest.

Stuff we’ve improved:

-More notifications: Recent Activity got an upgrade! It’s now located in the upper right corner. You’ll know when someone follows you or your boards; repins, likes or comments on your pin; or mentions you. You can even see older notifications.

-Better search: Now we’ll suggest search keywords as you type. If you’re looking for “bacon,” you might see suggestions like “bacon roses” or “bacon desserts” (Yum.)

-New pins (coming soon): We’ll let you know when new pins have been added to your home feed.

Stuff we’re still thinking about…

We know there are other things you’d like to see on Pinterest—like the ability to rearrange your pins, search for your pins, know when you’ve pinned something already, or create a board within a board.

We take these suggestions to heart, but it’s tricky to make them work for everyone. Some people don’t have a lot of pins, for example, so they don’t need boards within boards. We’re listening, though, and we’ll keep looking for ways to organize your stuff on Pinterest.

Thanks so much for sticking it out with us as we work together to make Pinterest better. We hope you like these updates, and keep that feedback coming!

P.S. We’re still rolling out the new look to everyone. If you haven’t gotten it yet, you can click on the “Get it now” button located at the top of your home feed.

—Cory Carpenter, Product Manager, Currently obsessed with pinning to Ideas for bedtime stories

Sometimes native, non-PC apps are “stripped down,” and offer fewer features than their web counterparts. (And there’s no denying there’s some stuff you can’t do w/Tumblr’s iOS app that you can do with the web client.). But looking at this list, there’s stuff you can do with Tumblr’s iOS app that you can’t do on the web version. Or at least stuff you can do in one gesture that would require more clicks or locations.

But mostly I’m just blogging this here because it’s a good list, and many of these things weren’t obvious/discoverable for me. (I’m brand new!)

markcoatney:

bryan:

• Swipe right to pop back to the previous view
• Pan across GIFs to animate them frame-by-frame
• Slide the compose button up to create a photo post
• Slide the compose button to the left to create a text post
• Long-press a post’s reblog button to perform a “fast reblog”
• Long-press a photo, a link, or a post’s “like” button for sharing options
• Long-press a reblogged post’s header for a link to the source blog
• Long-press a post tag for a list of all that post’s tags
• Long-press the compose button for one year for a $9 theme credit

The more you know.

There are new Instagram web features. Great! But don’t call it a web version.

TL;DR new Instagram web actions:

• you can now Like from the web
• you can now Follow from the web
• you can now Comment from the web
• you can now view a user profile in “feed” view from the web (see their most recent photos)
• you cannot click a username/avi to get to their profile, unlike anywhere else on the modern web. it’s just not a link at all. (listed here coz it feels extra weird in the context of the new stuff)

Let’s marinate:

Instagram labels their new web features very carefully. They’re not calling it “web version.” But rather, web profiles.

The main idea here: before when you knew a user’s Instagram name, it was useless on Instagram’s web site. instagram.com/username did not bring you a feed of their most recent photos, breaking with the design pattern of incredibly-similar social sites. (And not for privacy reasons. The otherwise-public photos have been viewable through 3rd party tools like webstagram, and statigram, using Instagram’s API.)

With the update, if you’re logged in, you can see an Instagram user’s most recent photos at /username.

Modern Feeds 101.

Less represented by the moniker “Web Profile,” but still much appreciated: You can now Comment, Like, and Follow from the Instagram web site. Wowza!

(Sidebar: This will result in more Comment, Like, and Follow spam on Instagram. Aggressive marketers love building quick and dirty scripts/bots that interact with web browsers. But this spam tax is more than worth having if we get the new web features. Also, the spam won’t be worse than anything faced by other sites. The only concern here is that Instagram doesn’t yet provide the same sort of controls to users to block/delete/config progressive permissions to who-can-interact-how with their stuff.

Despite the many “Finally!” Instagram web features, there are still lotsa, “WTF, that’s not clickable?!?” moments. Like when you’re viewing a photo, and click a username/avi next their Comment or Like, you get nothin’.
Clicking an avi/username is an act that on any other site (not just modern “social” sites like Pinterest/Tumblr/Facebook/Twitter/G+/Quora/Reddit, but old school forums + blogs, too), would normally bring you a user’s profile.

Instagram is also emphasizing the fact that you can make some (visual) customizations to your new web profile. While they spend more time talking about that than the web actions, anybody who spends lotsa time in social software knows that gestures/interactions across accounts usually make a much bigger difference than visual configs inside accounts, so I’m not gonna comment too much on the profile customization. I just don’t think it’s half as interesting as new social signals getting enabled on the web.

instagram:

You’ve asked for Instagram on the web and we’ve listened. Over the next few days, we’ll be rolling out Instagram profiles on the web!

Your web profile features a selection of your recently shared photographs just above your profile photo and bio, giving others a snapshot of the photos you share on Instagram. In addition, you can follow users, comment & like photos and edit your profile easily and directly from the web. It’s a beautiful new way to share your Instagram photos!

To see your profile, or to explore a friend’s profile, simply navigate to instagram.com/[username]. For example, in order to view Nike’s profile, @nike, you’d navigate to instagram.com/nike on the web. If you don’t see your profile yet, be assured that you’ll see it in the next few days. We’re rolling out profiles to everyone on Instagram over the course of this week. You can find more information on Instagram profiles below the photos in this post, as well as in our help center.

Take a look at some of these beautiful profiles to get a sense of the new Instagram web experience:

@mycookingdiary

@cucinadigitale

@palomaparrot

Instagram Web Profiles: Common Questions

What are Instagram web profiles?

Instagram web profiles are a beautiful new way to view and share Instagram on the web! Your web profile features your photos along with your profile photo and bio, giving others a look at the content you share on Instagram.

What can I do with Instagram web profiles?

You can share your own profile with anyone you want to see your Instagram photos. In addition, web profiles provide an easy way to follow other users, comment & like photos, and even edit your profile directly from the web.

Why is Instagram launching web profiles?

We’re launching web profiles to give you a simple way to share your photos with more people and to make it easier to discover new users on the web.

How do I see my web profile?

To see your profile, or to explore a friend’s profile, simply navigate to instagram.com/[username]. For example, in order to view Nike’s profile, @nike, you’d navigate to instagram.com/nike on the web.

Why can’t I see my web profile yet?

Web profiles will launch to all Instagram users in the next week or so. If you can’t see your profile yet, rest assured that you’ll see it in the next few days.

Who can see my web profile?

If your photos are set to public, anyone will be able to see your profile by visiting instagram.com/[your username] on the web. You do not have to be an Instagram user to view a public user’s profile on the web.

If your photos are set to private, your photos will be visible only to logged-in Instagram users you’ve allowed to follow you.

What photos are included in my web profile?

All photos you’ve shared to Instagram are included in your web profile.

My photos are set to “Private” – do I still have a web profile?

Yes, but not everyone will be able to see your photos. Your photos will be visible only to logged-in Instagram users you’ve allowed to follow you.

Can I upload photos from the web?

Instagram is focused on the production of photos from mobile devices so users are not currently able to upload from the web. We’re excited about how Web Profiles will make it easier to browse and share content on the web for all our users.

To read more about Instagram web profiles, visit our help center.