Social media service BeReal has added a new feed to its platform called “Friends of friends,” where BeReal users can check out photos from their friends’ friends if they have approved the publication of their pictures there.
“Friends of friends” replaces the previous “Discovery” feed, which displayed randomly selected images from other BeReal users who had approved their pictures for the slightly more public feed.
As Gizmodo points out, BeReal’s new functionality somewhat contradicts the original purpose of the service. When the platform was launched, the idea was for users to take a photo of themselves and their surroundings at a random time each day and then post it. These pictures would only be visible to the user’s friends, and the user could only see images from their own friends.
As BeReal has added new features, the app is becoming more and more similar to platforms like Instagram. Over time, this might lead BeReal users to spend as much time there as they might otherwise have spent on Instagram. This is, of course, beneficial for the company behind BeReal, but it somewhat goes against the initial concept of the service, which aimed to allow users to quickly get a glimpse into their friends’ lives for a minute each day.
