Instagram reaches 1 billion users; introduces long-form video

As expected, the photo-sharing app Instagram announced that it had reached 1 billion monthly active users. The Facebook (FB) subsidiary also launched IGTV, a new app for watching long-form, vertical videos. With the IGTV app, now the Instagram users can watch one hour long videos. Earlier, users can watch the video on Instagram only for a minute.

Kevin Systrom, the CEO of Instagram made these two exciting announcements in an event at San Franciso today. IGTV will be rolled out worldwide in the coming weeks on Android and iOS platforms. When asked about the ads and whether users would be paid for the content created like in YouTube, Systrom said that there is no hurry to figure that out. He also added that IGTV will follow rules and regulations for posting videos.

Video Courtesy: Instagram

Users can upload videos ranging from 15 seconds to 10 minutes of maximum 650MB. Larger and verified accounts can upload videos of up to 60 minutes duration with size not exceeding 5.4GB from a computer. In IGTV, users will be the content creators and they can follow the channels of other content creators. Also, these videos can be shared to Facebook accounts.

For the videos uploaded, the users can get the insights such as likes, comments and view count which will also be visible to the people who watch the videos. But the average percent of video watched and an audience retention graph will be visible only to the content creators.

Related: Instagram goes down for many users

According to Statista, average revenue per Internet user in the U.S. in mobile video advertising segment is $27.51 in 2018 and this is expected to grow more than 50% to $39.81 in 2022. It’s worth noting that Facebook unveiled its live streaming service Facebook Live in 2015 and video-on-demand service Facebook Watch last year.

Related: Snap’s redesign debacle

With video being the most sought source, the millennials have switched over from Facebook to other social media sharing platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, about 78% of the younger Americans use Instagram’s rival Snapchat and 71% use Instagram.

Instagrammers have welcomed the social sharing platform’s decision by saying that the long-form videos will increase the engagement and many felt that they can promote their services or products and create brand awareness through the long-form videos. While the subsidiary has enthralled its 1 billion users by introducing IGTV, shares of its parent company Facebook crossed the $200 mark and registered its new 52-week high during today’s trading session.