Instagram is presumably about to encroach on YouTube’s turf and let its users post videos of up to one-hour long. Could this change things in the social media world?
A recent article of the Wall Street Journal brought up a rumor according to which Instagram is working on a new feature to compete against the current number one social platform, YouTube. Soon, we could see videos up to one-hour long on what was initially a photo-sharing service. But since Facebook bought the platform, it has changed dramatically with the inclusion of new features such as Stories, Live, and Highlighted Stories to name a few. Videos are now a big part of Instagram, and if the rumors turn out to be true, it could become an even bigger one.
When Stories were introduced, quite a few people with a small following on Snapchat decided to leave it and use Instagram exclusively instead. If Instagram were to allow longer videos than 15 or 60 seconds to be shared, one can only wonder what would happen to YouTube. It’s not clear yet how the integration of longer format videos would be, if it would be through longer stories, as posts, or as a new module in the app. One thing for sure, the system would have to change, because watching long videos without being able to pause, go backward or forward is clearly not the best experience users could dream of. To become a clear competitor to YouTube, some kind of monetization would also need to exist. Ads have existed on Facebook videos for a little while now, but the integration doesn’t seem as smooth as AdSense on YouTube. Let’s hope by the time Instagram brings long videos to its users; this will be a different story. It could probably help content creators publish their videos on Instagram rather than on Google’s platform.
What do you think of this rumor? Do you believe it would affect YouTube if it’s true? Would you like to see a better desktop version of Instagram to watch videos on your computer and not only on your smartphone? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.
Lead image by freestocks.org via Pexels.
I need to read another book.