Facebook and Instagram today announced that a short-video service would be implemented into the existing Instagram. Immediately, people on Twitter compared Instagram video to Vine, the popular Twitter app that allows users to…take short videos. Obviously there are some differences, but not many. How does Instagram’s video service stack up to Vine? Let’s find out.
Here’s a Vine I took at work:
And, to compare, here’s an Instagram video my coworker, Danny Vega, took (click on the image to watch the video):
So, what are the differences? Well, clearly the Instagram video looks a lot better than the Vine; it looks like a professional made it (it’s important to note that Danny is our videographer). Danny used some filters on his video too, but the most noticeable feature the image stabilization.
When Instagram/Facebook/NSA subsidiary announced Instagram videos earlier today, they mentioned image stabilization, but didn’t really focus on it for some reason. They should have. The image stabilization feature on Instagram Video is probably one of coolest features I’ve seen in awhile. It basically help amateur users create high quality, well made, videos.
My biggest issue with Vine is that all of my videos look really amateurish and lame (I can’t hold an iPhone steady for the life of me). Now, I can take all the videos I want and they’ll be stabilized so my friends don’t get nauseated after watching my videos.
I do have some problems with Instagram Video, though. First, it’s not an original idea; they basically copied Vine’s concept of making a short video on your mobile device. They did add some cool features, but not enough to separate Instagram from Vine. Also, it takes a while to load, but that’s probably cause of the stabilization feature — we can expect the load time to decrease as Instagram employees fine-tune the new feature.
For those of you who love Vine, don’t worry. They will still be adding new features, according to All Things D.
So, overall, Instagram is the better short video service, but the fact that they copied Vine definitely takes off a few points.