TikTok has hit the scene recently and has gandered some controversy. An app that is centered around a short video with music has taken over social media. TikTok however has come under some hot political water, so Instagram Reels is providing people with another option.
Instagram is now putting their hat in the ring to entertain us for a short amount of time. TikTok is looking like it may get banned from the United States with national security concerns. Instagram has been working on a new feature called ‘Instagram Reels’. Instagram started working on this quite some time ago. Reels is a way to diversify their offering and become more of a destination app. Adding Reels to the app would complement their existing stories. The timing couldn’t be better to capture the attention of our eyes as FaceBook is also facing some scrutiny with their boycott.
There is a worry that the Chinese owned TikTok could have the ability to spy in on the American population. There have been a few parties interested in purchasing the app, including Microsoft and even Apple.
Instagram Reels was beta-tested in India which had been a large TikTok market. Vishal Shah, Vice President of product Instagram has been quoted as saying that people want more short videos. Shah also went on to say that 45% of all videos uploaded to Instagram were 15 seconds or less.
“It’s not something that’s unique to our platform and others are definitely tapping into this format, whether that’s TikTok or YouTube or Snap or actually before that Musical.ly and Vine,” Shah said
Reels will be integrated directly into the app. There will be no need to sign up for another social platform. It will be in the ‘explore’ tab so that users can find new videos. These videos can be shared in their story or sent directly to someone over messenger, which will disappear after a day. Normally when a social platform copies another it falls under some heat. However with TikTok in the political spot they are in, I like this move by Instagram. Short musical videos seem to be all the rage right now and capitalizing on it only seems to make sense.
Source: Cnet
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