Instagram announced its entry into long-form video with a new app IGTV, which will also run as a separate tab within the Instagram app. Rumours of Instagram's entry into the long-form video space had been doing the rounds for a while given the image sharing platforms steep growth and popularity in key markets like North America. “It’s time for video to move forward, and evolve,” said Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom onstage at the launch event, where it also announced that Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users. Having taken on Snapchat and become five times its size, Instagram is now taking on YouTube — the mammoth of global video-streaming, which just announced that it has 1.8 billion logged-in users. Launching head-on into long-form video, Instagram announced that long-form vertical video on IGTV can go as long as ten minutes. The app is also making some exceptions for creators with 'massive' following: they can post up to 60 minutes of video. IGTV videos will all be prerecorded, and not live, at least not yet. Videos on the new standalone app will appear as rectangular thumbnails at the bottom of the screen and will go full-screen with a tap. Note that IGTV feeds will be curated and personalized for users. Instagram’s approach to IGTV mimics what it did with Boomerang, its standalone app for creating one-second video loops, which also exists within Instagram. For now, IGTV will exist both as its own app and as a feature within the main…
