4 Thoughts on Instagram's IGTV

1) IGTV is NOT a YouTube competitor

This is an entirely different beast than YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook Watch or any other video platform to date.

IGTV from Instagram is something we haven’t seen before, as it gives users the ability to upload video (but not easily, natively create it) that has to be vertically formatted, and in the range of 15 seconds to 10 minutes in duration (the hour-long video option right now is reserved for the major celebs/influencers).

I would however expect Instagram to give IGTV users the ability at some point to record video without leaving the app.

2) Snapchat was a pioneer

People thought Snapchat was crazy when they based their entire app functionality on vertical video back in 2012…

…and yet here we are.

And yes, this point has been brought up before, and yes Snapchat may indeed go down as the Blockbuster Video to Instagram’s Netflix BUT it still is worth noting how far ahead of everyone else Evan Spiegel and his crew were back then.

3) Its cluttered

Look, its been LESS than 24 hours since this was announced so believe me, I GET IT. I have little doubt that a year from now we will not be looking at the same UX/UI, and a lot of that will be determined based on user reaction and data gathered from now until then. I’m just saying that to start off with, it could be just a tad cleaner.

There’s a LOT going on with this home screen:

4) Instagram/Facebook knows how to time a launch

They dropped IGTV on the fifth anniversary of when they launched the first video capability on Instagram, PLUS VidCon was happening at the same time, which meant the buzz about this continued at that annual conference that pulsates with a huge chunk of IG’s youthful, core demographic.

Its the only marketing conference I know of that has a link for parents and guardians.

BONUS: A use case (or the beginnings of one)

I feel like there was a discussion had at Facebook/Instagram HQ that revolved around data that showed how long users watch IG Stories. If you’re like me and you start watching Stories, and one pops up with anywhere from twenty to thirty of those little dashes at the top of the screen, you’re generally OUTTA THERE after a couple of images/videos. I mean, if you add that up, that’s like 3–4 minutes of your life if you watched all of it, and you do NOT have time for that.

Meanwhile, back at Facebook HQ…

They maybe saw that people just don’t watch long Stories and figured, “Hey, let’s give them two different places for video!”…MEANWHILE they secretly know already that we are all going to take our Stories, save them in full to our camera rolls, and then upload them to our IGTV channels.

Oh and yes you’ll be happy to know that brands will do this too, so that their “best” content will live longer than twenty four hours.

DOUBLE BONUS: Some questions, and some answers (sort of)

Q1: Will current Instagram users want to watch long-form, vertical videos?

A1: Probably not in huge numbers right away, but eventually

Q2: Will this be a feature and/or content that brings in new users?

A2:  Probably not in huge numbers right away, but eventually

Q3: Will most users utilize their “new” IGTV channel as simply a place to store their extra-long Instagram (and Snapchat) stories, so that they don’t disappear after 24 hours?

A3: Probably!

IGTV isn’t a “game-changer” (very few things are, despite the hyperbole around...well, everything) but without question it’s got some sizable, potential ramifications in the video content world for creators, marketers, brands and even (gasp!) users.

This post originally appeared on Medium here.