In their upcoming press event on June 20, Facebook may unveil video sharing support for Instagram, reports TechCrunch. This move would put Instagram in direct competition with Twitter’s Vine app.
TechCrunch’s unspecified source is not the first to speculate about cinematic additions to the popular photo sharing app. About a month ago former Reuters employee Matthew Keys announced that Facebook was testing “Vine-like video for Instagram.” The Instagram videos would last between five and 10 seconds, he reported. Vine’s videos last six seconds.
Since Facebook mailed (really, mailed, as in they printed on paper and licked some stamps) reporters invitations to a mysterious product launch event being held on Thursday, people have been speculating about what Facebook might announce. Previously TechCrunch considered the possibility of Facebook launching a news reader when lines of code including the term “rssfeeds” appeared in Facebook’s Graph API code. Facebook importing RSS feeds in order to become a news reader or, more likely, incorporating trending news feeds based on hashtag use on Facebook would make sense based on Facebook’s recent addition of hashtags. Even if a trending news or RSS reader feature isn’t announced Thursday I bet we will still see it pop up in the near future giving Facebook an avenue to compete against the discovery possibilities available on Twitter and Google+.
Via ABC News
Providing video support on Instagram could be a strategic move allowing Facebook to continue to compete with Twitter. With data showing that Vine is quickly gaining on Instagram, it may be time for Facebook to enter the world of short-form video publishing.
What do you think? Would video publishing help the Instagram community grow or would it just make the app bloated with features?
Vine/Instagram photo via Marketing Land
This would be helpful from a usability standpoint!