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IGTV — Instagram's new app for watching long-form, vertical videos
IGTV is a new app for watching long-form, vertical video from your favorite Instagram creators, like LaurDIY posting her newest project or King Bach sharing his latest comedy skit. While there’s a stand-alone IGTV app, you’ll also be able to watch from within the Instagram app so the entire community of one billion can use it from the very start.
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I love this. I've been experimenting with vertical only videos and follow some awesome creators who only do vertical. However I haven't seen long form videos done vertically and cannot imagine watching a portrait-mode movie. I already spend 90% of my time on Instagram stories so it's not totally surprising.
Also, if worse comes to worse you can still do landscape mode and just turn it vertically... have seen a lot of creators use that approach as well!
Super excited about this. One con however: Facebook sucks at search. There's no way they can compete with Google on that front so that will always be a limiting factor.
@allnick I can definitely see people watching lengthy vertical videos (think of everyone who watches Netflix on their phone), so I think it's more about whether creators embrace the format. A potential audience of 1 billion is a powerful incentive though…
@allnick +1. Also, they could eventually accommodate for horizontal (the way they eventually allowed for horizontal images within vertical Stories wayyy later), but the fact they shipped with vertical right out the gate tells me a substantial chunk of their user base must already have adopted vertical.
Does the world really ned this? I am guessing the answer for a lot of folks is Yes. Q: Could this be Facebook's way of using vanity videos to gain a "foot in the door " into YouTube's entrenched domain?
Was it built using React Native? It doesn't feel like it. Feels smoother than stories.
I still have so many questions. Does the video need to be recorded live? Does it live on a channel after it has been viewed or does it disappear like stories? When will the app actually be available?
I get the move to vertical - at least within the context of the app - which makes sense especially since it’ll come second nature to existing serial IG Story creators who have already become accustomed to this orientation. I’m interested to see how more traditional channels who only ever create in horizontal will adjust their content strategies to optimize for vertical moving forward (assuming IG is a channel they care about).
Bold move across the board! Not sure how I feel about the emphasis on 'vertical' video but I guess I respect that they are 'all in.'
@_seanmcd YouTube is built for that. IGTV is not. Or did you forget your /s tag? :D
@a_polsley I actually wouldn't mind it separate; IG's product keeps on growing and a single app can only contain so much without usability/discoverability issues.
@a_polsley If it follows suit with IG’s Boomerang, then it’ll likely start as a standalone app and eventually make its way integrated directly into the native app later on.
After a couple days as a creator here are my thoughts
- long form content on a “Insta” doesn’t make sense. Short, digestible stories seem more native to the way people are using Instagram.
- I’m not a cyclops. Vertical Videos hurt my eyes. Landscape should be an option. Full screen too.
- an hour is a long time to be on Instagram.
- there’s no search, playlists, or categories to search through
- because there are no categories I would categorize channels into fb’s page tabs.. “health, beauty etc” and really court users into creating content that fits a niche.
- there needs to be way more documentation or instructions on what makes a good igtv channel and what top of things they see users doing for the platform. A walkthrough would be great. See this being a mess.
As a creator who recently invested in Youtube (camera equipment, editing software, sound, lighting etc) I'm interested to see how the video production for this new 'watch' app and feature plays out. Are we expected to put in the same amount of effort/time into this app or is the creation process native? Or is it something that's brought over to the app and just cut in the center of the frame post production? Either way this is interesting. I dont think i'd invest heavily into this but see it as something to put EXCLUSIVE content on as an add on to the content I'm already creating.
@trellwest Interesting points here - and it really goes back to how users search for content in general. YouTube still holds strong because of search-based behaviours from Google. I'll be very interested to see how IGTV metadata is being represented on search engines: that will be the ground-breaker that could make IGTV a strong player.
@trellwest @kylemalindawhite Will be interesting yes since IG on desktop is not a great experience, whereas it is app-based on mobile and users are less likely to search through the browser
Oh wow suddenly I stopped using other apps in my phone because of Instagram.
Want stories? Why Snapchat if I have Instagram?
Want to pin my favorite things? Why Pinterest if I can bookmark on Instagram?
Want to watch videos from the accounts I love? Why youtube if I have Instagram?
Well done guys!
just start and watch, you can spend some time like as watching television, only thing which is, it show contents from people I follow only and to get more content i need to follow more people and business. Am using it for more than a week now and the things i watch is what i already watched and i started swiping away thats makes me disturbing.
Pros:This is cool, just open and watch. you can continuously watch.
Cons:showing the contents repeatedly is very disturbing
Definitely a great move. Many of those who vlog with their phones will probably end up using it. But autoplay (instead of having to browse or see a feed) could be a pretty bad for an app where a lot of people are already 'wasting' a good amount of time.
@xparacha I see myself possibly wasting a lot of time with this autoplay feature. Possible for IGTV to introduce "timed breaks" as a more humane way of managing the frictionless experience? Commercial breaks were a great way of grabbing food and taking a toilet break.
Pro: YouTube is old, tired, and needs serious competition. The YT app sucks. You could say this a mobile-first YouTube, insofar it's a bit of a no-brainer for FaceGram to do. Especially because they have the Facebook server farm firepower behind them. Should be interesting.
Con: I don't like the 1 hour limit because longer videos are enabling most of the music I listen to, all sorts of different and wild music pieces from 1 to 10 hours long. Of course there's no money in this and so IG won't care.
Maybe it'll make the YT app suck less, who knows. Overall a big positive.
I'm upvoting this just because this launch will impact A LOT the social media market and opens a great space to independent content producers. More platforms, means better competition and better services, mainly niche players, like Twitch and Pinterest have done
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