I am not sure this only applies to the youths, but what is the one place you go to online for laid-back (read not having to read) research? For most teens, that would be the YouTube, and I am pretty confident the same applies for most people. Though the video-sharing social network is just not for research, it is also an entertainment hub. Well, it now has a rival in the form of Instagram’s new IGTV.
The Facebook-owned photos (and previously just 1-minute-long videos) sharing social network Instagram has launched a new video service dubbed IGTV. The new video service was built from the ground-up geared towards luring the young viewers away from YouTube.
The announcement was made last Wednesday and going forward, Instagram will expand its video time limit from one minute to 10 minutes for most IG users. However, for IG users with a large audience, you will be able to post one-hour-long videos.
Users will be able to upload the videos (both 10-mins or 1-hour long) via the traditional Instagram app or the new app IGTV from their phones. The bottom-line, of course for the Facebook Inc., is that more eyeballs on its platforms, more money it can milk out from advertisers.
When you think about it, this new feature is one of the few times Facebook, or any of its other subsidiaries, have not ‘copy-pasted’ a feature off Snapchat. At least they did not steal yet another feature from Snap, but they sort-of copied it off YouTube; so much for originality!
It is no secret, the parent company Facebook has been struggling to retain teenagers. The fact that it has been marred by scandals, which exposed its weak control on users’ personal information.
According to Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, IGTV will hopefully become a creativity hug for teens and young adults who want to show off their creativity online, and perhaps turn out to internet sensations. He hopes IGTV will become a hit like YouTube has grown to be over the last 12 years since Google acquired it for $1.76 billion and now has over 1.8 billion users.
Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion six years ago, and now the picture sharing social network has an estimated 1 billion users, up from the 800 million users it had barely nine months ago. However, stats by Pew Research Center reveal that 72% of teens aged 13-17 years old in the U.S. use Instagram. Yet 85% of them use YouTube. Yet the main Facebook platform has only 51% of users in the said age bracket, down from 71% in the survey conducted by Pew in 2014-15.
