Facebook corporation owned social network Instagram launched a mobile app IGTV on Wednesday that will allow users to take and post hour long videos, intensifying online streaming competition with YouTube.
In an event that announced the launch at San Francisco, Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said,”Teens are now watching 40 percent less TV than they did five years ago.”
Mobile video services have recently become a target and have been receiving attention by social media giants like Alphabet Inc’s YouTube and Snap Inc’s Snapchat that have over the years, attracted a huge userbase. Instagram, itself has over 1 billion users, Systrom said.
To kickstart the app, Instagram said in a statement that it signed Lele Pons, who has 25 million Instagram followers, who said that she would not choose between either. “I’m still going to be posting on YouTube as well as on Instagram,” she said.
“As social media “influencers” have gained popularity, I only wonder why it took Instagram so long to roll this out,” Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer analyst said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Facebook offered users a way to make money through the app while YouTube said it would update its commercialization policies in the following days.
Facebook has bought Instagram in 2012 which was originally a photo-sharing app, increasing its features by adding messaging and short videos. It also added the ability to post ‘slideshows’ disappearing within 24 hours in 2016, a copy of Snapchat’s ‘stories’.
