Instagram Now Does Video: 13 New filters and 15 Second Clips
Like it or not, one of the world's most popular photo sharing services just got motion support
Every month, 130 million people actively use Instagram. The service has seen 16 billion photos and gets a billion likes every single day. Say what you will about those silly filters, but Instagram is a monster in the world of photos. And now, they’re hoping to do the same with videos.
In a live event today, they let loose the fact that the service will now support 15-second videos. Recording works much like it does with Vine. You hold down your thumb on the button and it records as long as you’re pressing. You keep doing that until you hit 15 seconds. You can also delete pieces of a clip, though, which is a nice addition.
Of course there are filters to go with video. There are 13 new looks specifically made for the motion feature. Of course, you can always just use your sunglasses.
The videos show up in the stream just like photos, but they’re indicated with a video icon and play when you touch them. In order to make videos more enticing to play, it allows you to pick the still photo that will show up in people’s feeds to represent the video.
One of the other interesting announcements is the development of what they call Cinema. It’s a stabilization feature that helps take the jiggle out of videos. The demo they showed during the live event was extremely impressive, but we won’t know for sure until we go out and try it.
With some initial impressions, I’m impressed with how quickly the video feature actually works on my seemingly-ancient iPhone 4, which tends to struggle mightily with Vines.
So, what do you think? Does this make Instagram better or totally ruin it? Let us know in the comments.
