As expected, at its press event today, Facebook officially announced a new video feature for Instagram. The debut for the app’s new feature comes after the Menlo Park-based company dispatched mysterious invitations for a brand new product. The new feature is available immediately on both iOS and Android platforms.
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg took the stage briefly before turning the show over to Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. He began speaking about the 130 million user strong photo sharing network’s core values, simplicity and community, before noting how Instagram planned further simplifying the “collection of inspiration captured and shared.”
Instagram users are now able to shoot 15-second video footage by straightforwardly holding down the video record button and releasing when the want footage to shooting. Implementing 13 custom filters for the feature allows Facebook’s Instagram to not only separate itself from the likes of Vine, the six-second video network owned by Twitter, but also to stay true to the aspects that made Instagram so possible in the first place.
New cover frame functionality lets the user pull any clip from the video to boast as the preview picture, instead of the very first frame defaulting to the cover. This afford the user the ability to personalize and engage with their video, as well as others’.
Another big upgrade is the aptly named “Cinema” feature. Together with a bevy of video scientists, Instagram was able to devise a way to rid the user of any possibly bumpy, inconsistent footage. Cinematic stabilization for videos cuts down on this for the smoothest possible shot possible.
Video for Instagram can be shared the same way photos can, and users can even add a photo map, share their location, and transmit over their favorite social networks, though don’t forget direct photos don’t show up in Twitter feeds anymore, just links to the Instagram page. Videos will shot up in one’s Instagram feed the exact same way photos do.
As for the 15-second time choice, Systrom noted that it’s “not too short to constrain creativity, but not too long that it takes a while to download.” That should bode well for the 130 million Instagram users who have shared 16 billion photos to date and like roughly 1 billion photos per day.
Now that you’ve checked out the live stream announcement and read up on the new features, time for you to weigh in. What do you think of video for Instagram? Will it compete viably with the likes of Vine?
