I love this. I've been experimenting with vertical only videos and follow some awesome creators who only do vertical. However I haven't seen long form videos done vertically and cannot imagine watching a portrait-mode movie. I already spend 90% of my time on Instagram stories so it's not totally surprising. Also, if worse comes to worse you can still do landscape mode and just turn it vertically... have seen a lot of creators use that approach as well! Super excited about this. One con however: Facebook sucks at search. There's no way they can compete with Google on that front so that will always be a limiting factor.

As a creator who recently invested in Youtube (camera equipment, editing software, sound, lighting etc) I'm interested to see how the video production for this new 'watch' app and feature plays out. Are we expected to put in the same amount of effort/time into this app or is the creation process native? Or is it something that's brought over to the app and just cut in the center of the frame post production? Either way this is interesting. I dont think i'd invest heavily into this but see it as something to put EXCLUSIVE content on as an add on to the content I'm already creating.

Wow I mean how much more of my life can I spend on Instagram? I'm going to have to start rationing or it could get crazy ... super curious about the quality and themes of the long form content. There's a long way to jump from short witty insta stories to sth like a Netflix drama.

First Snapchat, now YouTube. Instagram, now up to 1B MAU, has done a remarkable job evolving the product from what started as a simple app to create photos with filters. This is a great example of expanding upon a wedge (something @bubba and I briefly spoke about this morning). Curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Share your hot take below. 👇🏼🌶

Does the world really ned this? I am guessing the answer for a lot of folks is Yes. Q: Could this be Facebook's way of using vanity videos to gain a "foot in the door " into YouTube's entrenched domain?

Oh wow suddenly I stopped using other apps in my phone because of Instagram. Want stories? Why Snapchat if I have Instagram? Want to pin my favorite things? Why Pinterest if I can bookmark on Instagram? Want to watch videos from the accounts I love? Why youtube if I have Instagram? Well done guys!

I still have so many questions. Does the video need to be recorded live? Does it live on a channel after it has been viewed or does it disappear like stories? When will the app actually be available?

I like it, but I also don't like it. IGTV doesn't give new users the ability to gain much traction as 'instagram-celebrities' are already dominant.

Instagram has always been known for sharing pictures, and I think the presence of IGTV takes away what has made Instagram a unique social media platform.

Pros:

Nicely Designed

Cons:

Seems harder for new creators to gain spotlight, the concept already exists with Youtube, this isn't really a game-changer

Instagram should be for images and short clips. Long form videos

does not make sense here. We have YouTube and Facebook for the same.

Whats next? Ability to write "text" posts on Instagram? Mark, why are

just merging features across your apps. This is different for a reason

Pros:

Businesses will finally be able to put long form videos

Cons:

Instagram is not for long form videos

The UI design of this app shares many, many similarities to the app "Channel" we built during our time at Swipe Labs. Not sure what to think... @edwin_de_jongh ?

After a couple days as a creator here are my thoughts - long form content on a “Insta” doesn’t make sense. Short, digestible stories seem more native to the way people are using Instagram. - I’m not a cyclops. Vertical Videos hurt my eyes. Landscape should be an option. Full screen too. - an hour is a long time to be on Instagram. - there’s no search, playlists, or categories to search through - because there are no categories I would categorize channels into fb’s page tabs.. “health, beauty etc” and really court users into creating content that fits a niche. - there needs to be way more documentation or instructions on what makes a good igtv channel and what top of things they see users doing for the platform. A walkthrough would be great. See this being a mess.

This will work, but we might have to wait a few weeks to see the results. many people are compering this to youtube. I don't think youtube has anything to worry from this, that is up until IGTV starts paying their content creators.

I get the move to vertical - at least within the context of the app - which makes sense especially since it’ll come second nature to existing serial IG Story creators who have already become accustomed to this orientation. I’m interested to see how more traditional channels who only ever create in horizontal will adjust their content strategies to optimize for vertical moving forward (assuming IG is a channel they care about).

I think the skeptics here should be mindful of how much the network effect that Instagram and facebook has will give this an edge. It might not have an obvious fit with a market now, but I imagine this will be one of many experiments into increasing watch time for FB's properties. I think a natural fit might be expanding what people can do with Instagram Stories and Live streaming. Theres a huge amount of eye balls there, and the content is very DIY/low production value (which is of benefit to it honestly) but I imagine people might be interested in swiping through some higher production value content in the same experience. Brands and creators should be able to have a central place to create such content and IGTV seems like a natural fit.

Wow, @grex must be getting robbed given his recent launch of Dreams.

I'm upvoting this just because this launch will impact A LOT the social media market and opens a great space to independent content producers. More platforms, means better competition and better services, mainly niche players, like Twitch and Pinterest have done

Bold move across the board! Not sure how I feel about the emphasis on 'vertical' video but I guess I respect that they are 'all in.'

Definitely a great move. Many of those who vlog with their phones will probably end up using it. But autoplay (instead of having to browse or see a feed) could be a pretty bad for an app where a lot of people are already 'wasting' a good amount of time.

just start and watch, you can spend some time like as watching television, only thing which is, it show contents from people I follow only and to get more content i need to follow more people and business. Am using it for more than a week now and the things i watch is what i already watched and i started swiping away thats makes me disturbing.

Pros:

This is cool, just open and watch. you can continuously watch.

Cons:

showing the contents repeatedly is very disturbing

This is following the trends of the younger demographic who want to watch longer videos in a more authentic manner (not too well-produced) but are not on Facebook as often as they are on Instagram. Very smart move, really excited to see the monetisation options for creators as well and whether it will move creators away from YouTube. Great UI as well - focused on discovery at the moment so I hope over time, the app will learn what topics are important to me so I don't have to go on a big chase to find relevant content.