You may or may not have noticed this already, but Instagram is really trying to be the next big video platform. Who can really blame after the wild successes of both YouTube and TikTok? But its first big video push, IGTV, hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. That’s why Instagram’s giving it a makeover.
IGTV is dead. Long live Instagram TV
In truth, the format itself isn’t being thrown out. Rather, it’s getting a new name, ‘Instagram TV’, and it’s being made less special. See, IGTV used to have a distinct advantage over normal feed videos, that being that you could use it to record significantly longer videos. While your feed was limited to a paltry 60 seconds, IGTV videos could be an hour long.
Now, feed videos get the 60-minute treatment too, rendering the continued existence of Instagram TV slightly confusing. A spokesperson told The Verge that the TV app will still be a “destination for people with the intent of watching video.” Sure.
IGTV came to Instagram back in 2018, looking to take on YouTube as the premier provider of video format entertainment, but it ever quite caught on. This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that TikTok exploded onto the social media scene shortly after that.
Instagram took notes from TikTok’s success, however, and introduced Reels, a vertical short video feature, last year which has been more successful than IGTV. YouTube did something similar by way of Shorts.
However, despite the platform’s best efforts, Reels still pale in comparison to the manic popularity of TikTok. For now, it seems that the Facebook-owned social media platform’s video content aspirations will remain not much more than dreams.