Speaker 1: Instagram takes on YouTube with IGTV.
Speaker 2: What's going on. I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on
Speaker 2: Tech Daily.
Speaker 1: Forget everything you know about mobile video because Instagram has
Speaker 1: a new way to watch. It ditches the current norm
Speaker 1: of YouTube and even your TV set with one big difference.
Speaker 1: The video is meant to be watched in a vertical format. Yes,
Speaker 1: something we've been saying for years in the professional video
Speaker 1: world that's not acceptable is now totally acceptable.
Speaker 3: Long form vertical video from the creators that you love.
Speaker 3: It's mobile first, it's simple, and its quality. That's IGTV.
Speaker 1: That's Instagram founder Kevin Sistrom on stage at the announcement
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. Instagram launched just eight short years ago,
Speaker 1: back in twenty ten, and the growth has been phenomenal
Speaker 1: since then. The app says it now has get this
Speaker 1: one billion monthly active users. Until now, Instagram has been
Speaker 1: great for sharing photos and stories that people love, including myself,
Speaker 1: and even short video clips.
Speaker 2: But the company sees a much.
Speaker 1: Bigger opportunity now to capitalize on younger users who are
Speaker 1: not watching as much traditional TV, but they are watching
Speaker 1: more and more videos from creators online.
Speaker 3: An entirely new category of video now exists, and it's
Speaker 3: being made by creators. Teens might be watching less TV,
Speaker 3: but they're watching more creators online and the number of
Speaker 3: creators has grown exponentially.
Speaker 1: Instagram says the problem with the current state of mobile
Speaker 1: video is that it hasn't adapted to the way we
Speaker 1: watch on our phones today.
Speaker 3: We still watch videos formatted for a TV on a
Speaker 3: vertical screen, which means we either have to rotate our
Speaker 3: phone awkwardly or watch a tiny little version. And that
Speaker 3: doesn't make much sense, does it?
Speaker 2: Then they took a direct aim at YouTube.
Speaker 3: Video on mobile is also clunky and unnatural. Current apps
Speaker 3: make you search or browse the directory to find things
Speaker 3: you like, when was the last time you had to
Speaker 3: turn on a TV and then had to type a
Speaker 3: search just to start watching.
Speaker 1: When you load Instagram TV, it just starts playing kind
Speaker 1: of like old school TV. And I get that they
Speaker 1: even use static on the screen when you switch channels
Speaker 1: or wait for a video to load, something that teens
Speaker 1: don't even identify with because they never lived in an
Speaker 1: analog world, so they don't remember that on their real
Speaker 1: TV screens like I do.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What we love about YouTube and online video is that
Speaker 1: we can find exactly what we want to watch, and
Speaker 1: the idea of turning on IGTV and sitting back and
Speaker 1: trusting it to pick the stuff that we want to
Speaker 1: see might not work. Right now, there are various feeds
Speaker 1: you can watch, including a custom for you feed which
Speaker 1: includes videos from Instagram.
Speaker 2: People that you follow.
Speaker 1: Then there are popular videos and a section called continue watching,
Speaker 1: which lets you pick up.
Speaker 2: Where you left off. There's also a.
Speaker 1: Search function, but it's currently limited to searching for accounts.
Speaker 1: So I typed in one plus six the name of
Speaker 1: a hot new smartphone to see if there are any
Speaker 1: reviews of the smartphone on Instagram TV, something that I
Speaker 1: might do on YouTube, and I came up empty handed.
Speaker 2: That's not good.
Speaker 1: A search for Hollywood brings up accounts with Hollywood in
Speaker 1: the name, but not videos about the place. Right now,
Speaker 1: you can access igtv in two ways inside the Instagram
Speaker 1: app by tapping the little TV icon in the upper
Speaker 1: right hand corner, or you can download a standalone IGTV app.
Speaker 1: The difference is that the standalone app lets you skip
Speaker 1: your typical Instagram feed and the videos just start playing
Speaker 1: when you open it up.
Speaker 2: So will igtv take over YouTube? Well? Probably not.
Speaker 1: There will always be a place for videos that you
Speaker 1: can search through and watch on different places like your
Speaker 1: TV screen, your tablet, and your phone. But igtv is
Speaker 1: definitely interesting in how it embraces vertical video, and it
Speaker 1: could be an easy way for Instagram creators, many who
Speaker 1: are already really popular on that platform, to reach their
Speaker 1: followers in yet another way, and one that does not
Speaker 1: require their users to change platforms or open.
Speaker 2: Up a different app. As for me, of course, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try it out.
Speaker 1: I'll experiment with some vertical videos, even though it goes
Speaker 1: against everything I was taught in journalism school, but I'll
Speaker 1: see what igtv and all the buzz is about.
Speaker 2: And thank you for listening. I'm Rich Demiro. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you real soon.
Speaker 1: M