Instagram has launched a new platform designed to rival YouTube and Snapchat.
Called IGTV, the new standalone app is designed to play vertical videos up to an hour in length. The app allows creators to produce 4K longform videos that are longer than the 60 seconds original Instagram allows.
While the format puts Instagram in direct competition with YouTube, vertcal-only videos are yet to be tested in popularity when it comes to longer content. Currently, the only vertical-videos are available through Instagram and Snapchat Stories.
“We’ve come a really long way in just eight years, and it’s thanks to this incredible community … that we’ve been able to launch IGTV,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said at the IGTV announcement.
The app is currently only allowing content up to an hour long from ‘creators’, or people who have high follower counts like Kim Kardashian West and Selena Gomez (who already have accounts); but they predict they will be allowing general users to create and upload IGTV videos soon. For now, us regular people can upload videos up to ten minutes in length.
As for ads? “There’s no ads in IGTV today,” Systrom said during the launch event, but went on to say that the platform is “obviously a very reasonable place [for ads] to end up.”
