Video on Instagram: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Today, Facebook announced at their headquarters in California that Instagram would be adding a “short video” service, so that you can now upload videos and photos to your Instagram feed. Here’s what you need to know.

1. Video For Instagram Offers 15 Second Videos

Contrary to Vine’s 6-second videos, Instagram will be offering 15-second videos, over double the amount Vine offers. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said that this would be the “not too short and not too long.” We kinda disagree; 15 seconds seems to be a tad too long for our extremely-short attention spans.

2. It Also Lets You Add Filters

Instagram became famous and managed to be valued at $1 billion thanks to filters. Now, with Instagram Video, you can add filters to your short video clips. The Facebook subsidiary unveiled 13 new filters, exclusively for videos on Instagram.

3. You Can Also Delete Clips

One of the coolest features on Instagram Video is the ability to delete clips from a video. Hypothetically, if you’re taking a Instagram video and you mess up, you can easily delete the latest sections — or all sections — from the clip. Basically, you can edit videos from within the app, a feature that Vine hasn’t even come close to offering. Deleting clips is definitely the coolest feature on Instagram Video.

4. It Works A Lot Like Vine

That being said, Instagram Video is basically a rip-off of Vine. When you boil it down, both are just short video services for social media sites. The more interesting aspect is the increasing competition between Twitter and Facebook. Facebook may be the original social media company, but Twitter has managed to not only monetize their product, but did so without sacrificing the users’ experience (Twitter will reportedly make $1 billion this year from just mobile advertisements). Since Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, both Twitter and Facebook/Instagram have been passive-aggressively fighting, starting with Instagram not working on twitter shortly after the acquisition. This Vine vs Instagram Video debate is merely another battle in the ongoing war between these two social media conglomerates.

5. This Could Hurt Vine A Lot

Vine’s impressive statistics could be hurt by this brand new competitor. Since January when Vine was released, the app’s seen some amazing growth. As we previously wrote, Vine actually suprassed Instagram in popularity, which was a pretty astounding stat. But, with Instagram users having the ability to easily and quickly add a video — within the app (Vine has a separate app) — Instagram video numbers should go through the roof. We’ll have to wait and see though, since the service was just released today.