Announced last week at the Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters is the new Video feature for Instagram. It’s their answer to Vine, allowing users to take 3-15 seconds of video that can you apply filters, effects and frames to just like Instagram images. The videos will sit alongside photos on the massively popular social networking app adding motion to the static of dinner snapshots and sunsets.
The 15 second total length is a vast difference over that of their biggest competitor in the field of video sharing apps: Vine. The recent start up app owned by Twitter has taken the social networking world by storm with its 6 second vignettes. Currently sitting at 13 million registered users, Vine is a formidable opponent for Instagram to take on. So what does Instagram video offer over Vine? As far as Facebook’s event described, Instagram are aiming for pretty much the same end product
Like the 6 second vignettes of stop motion magic or jump cuts that Vine is famous for, Instagram will offer a similar way of capturing video but with filters and effects that can be applied real time. With an already established audience of 90 million, Instagram could beat Vine with numbers alone but breaking through to become most used video sharing app will be a tough bet considering Vine already holds the title.
Instagram is claiming that the new video feature will also come with a function called “Cinema” that they claim “will change video forever”. Essentially it’s a video stabilization technique that will make our handheld shot videos look like they were shot with a steadicam apparatus. It’s a cool idea and should theoretically work (with loss of resolution as a trade off) but will it be enough to get Instagram ahead of other video sharing apps?
Instagram has released an update for both their iPhone and Android iterations of application with support for video. Check out it now on the Appstore or Google Play!
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