Instagram has been working on hour-long videos. It has now revealed that it will be launching a hub for longer-form video, just like Snapchat Discover and YouTube. The video hub will be a dedicated space that will feature music videos, scripted shows, and YouTube-style content. The videos will be published in a full-screen vertical orientation that is high-definition with a 4K resolution. The launch has been tentatively scheduled for June 20th.
The long-form video hub will highlight a collection of popular videos and users will have the option to “continue watching”. The long-form clips could be seen featured on content creators’ profiles near the Stories Highlights bubbles. The section will only allow uploading pre-developed videos, therefore artists won’t be able to shoot and post in real time.
Instagram might be able to attract publishers to bring vertical videos to its app rather than opting for Snapchat Discover. The Discover section offered exclusive and high quality produced vertical videos from producers as compared to user-generated content. However, the app has faced a severe backlash because of its redesign that now hides Discover, therefore, user growth has since been going down. Moreover, the longer-form videos at Instagram won’t be Netflix quality but they will comprise of YouTube-style videos that are produced in good quality. With massive ad revenue and user engagement, YouTube is now on the radar of Instagram. The Facebook-owned company now wants its users to develop vertical videos for Instagram and use the video hub to attract more followers.
Eventually, Instagram will let creators and publishers earn money off the longer videos by integrating ads, mid-breaks or revenue splits. The videos will also feature a swipe-up option to open up a link which can drive user traffic to a creator’s website, e-store or event tickets. Apart from being a revenue stream, the feature can be a remarkable marketing tool to cater to over 800 million users of Instagram. All it needs to do is to convince creators to develop videos in vertical format.
