If US users opened the Instagram app yesterday, they might have seen a new feature presented: an “immersive” video feed contributed by Instagrammers. Starting at 1 PM on Saturday, the channel can be reached by clicking on the Explore tab inside the app. Since people keep posting clips of Halloween activities, wearing fantastic costumes and hanging out, it seems to be the best opportunity for Instagram to launch its channel.
Instagram haven’t made any official announcement to the channel, but this Snapchat’s Stories-like video channel was first reported on Wired.
The channel is one of the first experiments planned to surface the best videos on the network about important events or celebrations. Similar to Snapchat’s Stories, it offers users an easy way to discover interesting and trending information, like the Halloween this weekend. As people watching the videos, they can swipe to stop, tap to like and click on the creator post to see more uploads. The videos will last for 24 hours before they disappear from view.
According to Wired, the videos are hand-picked by employees at Facebook, its parent company. Instagrammers can even submit clips for consideration by affixing the hashtag #IGHalloween. Afted the project concludes, the clips will appear on the feed immediately.
“This is a new way to experience events and big moments, as they happen, through the eyes of the Instagram community”, a spokeperson of Instagram wrote in an email.
Pictures are replacing the use or words in communication and Instagram is becoming a formidable news service on the Internet. With its good user experience, Instagram is pulling users from their rivals, Twitter. It is no surprise that Instagram now has approximately 400 million active users, comparing to 320 million Twitter users. However, Twitter is still considered to be the place where people can get something live and in the moment because of its robust search engine and better tools for discovery. The new video channel is hoped to change this situation.
Snapchat, with more 100 million active users, is aslo the one to worry about the rise of Instagram. The site has features to broadcast user-created videos of big events and allow people see clips and pictures posted by their friends. While Instagram uploads are designed to document and provide an archive, Snapchat’s photos are meant to disappear.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a survey by Piper Jaffray of American teens found that Instagram was the most popular social site for 33 percent of teens. Twitter comes in second place with 20 percent and the third was Snapchat with 19 percent. Facebook is surprisingly at the fourth place with just 15 percent.
At present, Instagram will look for more universal events to show on its video channel. The service has no plan to open its channel to advertisers but people will soon be interested in it as an effective advertising tool.