Instagram announces IGTV, A vertical long-form video standalone app
Photo: Instagram Press
As expected, the rumors about Instagram adding a long-form video component turned out to be true. During a big event in San Francisco, the popular social media app announced IGTV, a new standalone app that allows creators to upload vertical long-form videos up to an hour long. In addition to the app, IGTV is available within the existing Instagram app, appearing in the top right of the screen, next to the message inbox button.
Photo: Instagram Press
Videos automatically start playing once you open the app so there is no need to search for videos as you would need to do with other video-platforms such as YouTube. You can discover videos to watch by scrolling through various personalized sections such as For You, Following, Popular, and Continue Watching. In addition, IGTV features channels, which are the creators themselves. If there is a particular channel that you want to stay up-to-date with, you can do so by following it.
At the moment, the platform is ad-free, however, it likely will feature advertisements in the future in order to help creators monetize their content.
As I mentioned before, Instagram continues to be a one-stop shop for creators as well as everyday consumers of content. The more features and options that it rolls out, the easier it is for users to stay on the app longer.
Since creators are able to upload long-form video content directly to the platform now, their fans will no longer need to go to another platform (i.e. YouTube) to watch their content in its entirety. As a result, users will likely spend more time on the app and engage more with the content in it.
Besides Instagram's ability to team up with major celebrities like Kim Kardashian West and Selena Gomez for long-form video content in the near future, on a very basic level, is it taking advantage of the popularity of vertical videos. By doing just that, it is already setting itself up for success.
When Instagram launched Stories last summer, it was able to grab a great deal of Snapchat's audience. Thanks to IGTV, Instagram will likely be able to penetrate YouTube's audience in a similar fashion.
SOURCE: Instagram Press
