Instagram is expanding US tests that will allow creators to upload long-form video up to 90 minutes and switch a video’s orientation to horizontal, the company announced Monday. Creators will also be able to link short clips directly to full-length videos. The update is aimed at viewers who watch Instagram on television screens, and it could make the platform resemble a streaming service.
Tessa Lyons, vice president of product at Instagram, said the company believes entertainment and creativity are not limited to a three-minute video. She described the goal as building the best place for social entertainment with the video overhaul. In the source article, the announcement was reported by WIRED.
Instagram is also broadening tools that let creators turn Reels into episodic content. Lyons said the company wants to recognize when a viewer likes one episode and make sure the next one is shown to them. The Reels feature, called Series, is already available for some creators in the app and is being tested for TV viewing.
Instagram is concentrating on the TV viewing experience and looking for ways to make it feel social, including showing connections what a user has been watching through the Friends tab. The company also plans to turn smartphones into TV remotes. Lyons said short-form content is often vertical and long-form content is often horizontal, and the design challenge is making both work cohesively in one product. TV becomes a good destination for long-form horizontal content, she said, while mobile is a good place for discovery.
The changes challenge YouTube’s dominance on TVs while drawing on Instagram’s strength in clips, according to the source article. Short clips, frequently of two people seated behind podcast microphones, are widespread on social media, and many creators use them to gain visibility. The source article notes that WIRED’s own podcast records videos for social media clipping.
Lyons framed the video-focused update as avoiding a core mistake of IGTV, the company’s earlier attempt at more expansive content. Many viewers of IGTV wanted to flip the screen, and the product failed to connect with users in part because it only allowed vertical videos. Meta discontinued the app a few years after its 2018 launch.
The source article describes Instagram as trying to streamline a viewer’s path from viral clips to long-form content. Rather than having clips and full episodes on different platforms, Instagram is positioning itself as a centralized experience where a viewer can encounter a short clip and later be prompted to stream the full episode on a TV.
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