There’s no denying TikTok’s supremacy in the war for our ever-shortening attention spans, leaving YouTube and Instagram to vie for second place. The latter, in the hands of Meta, hopes to claw back some of those numbers by launching a separate Reels app that’ll get people clicking faster than they were previously.
Unlike Instagram’s last attempt to snatch away Twitter’s users with Threads, Instagram Reels has the benefit of brand recognition behind it, ensuring that Instagram’s latest venture won’t flop quite as hard as all the rest.
Keepin’ it Reel
It’s worth mentioning that Instagram hasn’t fully committed to the idea yet. There’s no official announcement, at least. The news of a spin-off Reels app was first reported by The Information, citing sources familiar with the matter, who allegedly overheard Instagram head Adam Mosseri discussing the idea with staff earlier this week.
That could mean an announcement is right around the corner, or that Mosseri was just spitballin’ and no such app is in development. According to the same sources, Meta has started an initiative internally known as ‘Project Ray’ that has a team of its top minds thinking up ideas to imitate and eventually ‘beat’ TikTok.
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That involves things like improving its content algorithms (not repeatedly suggesting NSFW videos is a start) and further extending the limit allowed when posting Reels to at least three minutes. YouTube recently implemented three-minute-long Shorts to its platform but that’s still a far cry from TikTok’s 60-minute limit.
It’s unclear whether the standalone Reels app would still permit Facebook content mixed in with the algorithm, or if it’ll be a completely self-driven project. We can assume it will still recommend Facebook content seeing as the current iteration of Reels is still filled to the brim with the content that would get a chuckle out of your mom.
It probably also helps that Meta plans to release another standalone app for its Meta AI offering later this year. It’s as the old adage goes, ‘one can never have too many apps’, or something like that.
