Instagram Head Says The App Isn’t Going To Do Long-Form Video
The head of Instagram says that the app won’t be pursuing long-form video because it prefers short clips instead.
Taking to his Instagram account yesterday, Moserri says that at Instagram’s core, the app does two things: connecting people with friends and helps people explore their interests.
Moserri adds that the latter part is primarily done through short-form videos and sees socializing on Instagram and short videos as symbiotic.
He says that the idea is if a user watches a short clip that they like they will send that piece of content to a friend and voila, the user is bonding online with a friend.
Moserri claims that long-form video does not fit in the symbiont circle because people are less likely to share 10-20 minute videos with their friends.
This hot take is interesting not least because TikTok is seemingly going the other way by allowing users to post 60-minute videos as it looks to compete with YouTube.
Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of photographs; something the platform has been criticized after it seemingly began prioritizing video over the still image.
“No mention of photos. Noted,” writes @urbanfamrandkitchen.
Full transcript of Mosseri’s remarks:
A creator asked me recently, “Are we going to do long-form video on Instagram?” The answer is no and I wanted to explain why.
We do a number of different things on Instagram but at the heart of it there are really two jobs. One: connecting you with friends. Two: helping you explore your interests, usually through short-form video.
It turns out that those two things are symbiotic. You see an amazing video that makes you laugh out loud from a comedian doing a bit and you send it to someone who you know is going to laugh just as loud as you did. Or for me, I see a highlight of an amazing soccer goal or trick, and I send it to someone who I know loves soccer as much as I do. So these things are about connecting with friends over your interests.
It turns out long-form video is less symbiotic with these other jobs. If you watch a 10 or 20-minute video, you see less content from friends, you interact with your friends less, and you’re actually less likely to send that content or that video to a friend. So we’re not going to go after that business because it’s part of our core identity to connect people with friends and we don’t want to undermine that by going after long-form video.
We understand short form video doesn’t always do that, but it can. We try and prioritize short-form video that does. So let me know down below the comments what you think. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of hot takes on this one. Peace.