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Instagram Ditches IGTV Feature To Form Mega ‘Instagram Video’
By Ell Ko, 06 Oct 2021
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Image via Alexandru Voica / Instagram
Instagram has been shifting focus from retaining its identity solely as a photo-sharing app, as previously reported, and looking to expanding into video instead.
In line with this, the social media platform has just announced that it’s going to combine its existing IGTV video feature with videos in users’ individual feeds to create somewhat of a hybrid simply known as ‘Instagram Video’.
Reels, however, have been spared—at least for now. The short-form videos are a direct competition to TikTok, so it makes sense why Instagram would want them to remain separate.
Now, a new tab will begin to appear on users’ profiles, storing all the videos they have posted. When viewing someone’s video content anywhere on the app, users will have the option to enter fullscreen with one tap. When the video has finished, they’ll have the choice to either tap “back” to exit, or remain in video-watching mode and discover more content from the same creator by scrolling.
Image via Alexandru Voica / Instagram
In terms of the standalone IGTV app, it won’t exactly be disappearing. Rather, it’ll be expanded to host a wider range of video-based content such as IGTV videos, feed videos, and live streams.
Within this, the company is also planning to add more features to help users create video content more effortlessly. This will see the introduction of functions like trimming, filters, and location tagging, among others.
Image via Alexandru Voica / Instagram
“We love that our creator community has embraced video as a key format to tell their stories, entertain, and connect with their audiences,” states Alexandru Voica, Facebook technology communications manager, on Twitter. “We want to make it even simpler to create and discover videos on Instagram.”
TechCrunch reportsthat alongside these changes, IGTV Ads are being rebranded to ‘In-Stream’ video advertisements.
Although the update is now live, users will still be able to upload videos (that aren’t Reels) in the same way as before: the + button to create a new post. Similarly to before, the videos can be shared through direct messages and posted to Stories, too.
Changes span across iOS and Android, so if the feature is still missing from your app, be sure to check that you have the latest version installed. Videos have a maximum length of 60 minutes, but other than that, the stage is all yours.
Video now accounts for almost half of all time spent on Facebook - and we’ve seen the creator community dive deeply into video content - and use it to connect with their communities more than ever.
— Alexandru Voica (alexvoica.eth) 💀 (@alexvoica) October 5, 2021
[via TechCrunch, images via Alexandru Voica / Instagram]
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