Despite NFTs continuing to decline, Meta is steamrolling forward with its expansion into the technology, offering NFT display option features on Instagram to more than 100 countries.
The idea, originally launched in May, is that you can display your purchased NFTs on the IG feed, in Stories, or in Direct Messages, and when a user taps the added ‘digital collectables’ tag, they will be shown all the information about the piece, including the original creator of the work and the ownership of that digital item.
It’s a good concept whether the item is sold as an NFT or not. Instagram has long had a bad history with artistic credit. Original pieces posted on the site are reshared without the consent or the credit of the original creator. However, to package it in with NFTs means educating the Instagram userbase exactly on what NFTs are and how you can use them. It’s debatable whether the userbase is quite there to accept NFTs or not yet.
As Meta explains: “We’re exploring a wide range of web3 technologies because we believe they will expand access, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation, empowering people and creators around the world. We are excited to continue listening to feedback from creators and collectors as we continue to build in this space.”
To be fair to Meta, between their two social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, Instagram is the place to push NFTs. It makes sense to appeal more to artists who are trying to make money from their work, which is one of the universally accepted benefits of the NFT technology, rather than to new mums asking old mums where the best schools are on Facebook Groups.
