American photo and video sharing social networking service Instagram is amping up its plans to prioritize video on the platform by combining IGTV and videos on the Newsfeed to form Instagram videos.
In the past, news feed videos were capped at one minute long, with the longer videos being supported by IGTV. However, the new format means that users can now make up to 60-minute videos without IGTV.
The videos will be located on a new ‘videos’ tab on users’ profiles.
The videos will appear on the Newsfeed where viewers can tap on them to enter a full-screen viewing mode. After watching, they can scroll for more videos just like in Reels, or tap back to return to the timeline.
Instagram reportedly made the changes after IGTV proved unpopular with the majority of users. Out of more than a billion users on the Facebook-owned app, only 18 million had downloaded the standalone IGTV app. Instagram is however not getting rid of it, but simply rebranding it to Instagram Videos, and making it the primary format for video content on the app.
Reels will however not be affected by the changes. The short video-making TikTok clone will continue working as usual. Users scrolling through Instagram videos will only load video content, while those scrolling through Reels will also load Reels content, with no mix-up of the two.
The feature has been rolled out for all users globally.
