Instagram upending Vine
Camera-equipped smartphones have always been a popular choice to shoot and share images. Since many of these are able to transfer photos through Wi-Fi or 3G or 4G-LTE data networks, it’s only natural that users show off photos through email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter.
Instagram, now owned by Facebook, is one of the most popular apps on Android and the iOS platforms. Now with 100 million active users, Instagram allows the quick and spontaneous taking and sharing of photos. These shots are enhanced with filters, frames and effects to give users a simple yet creative photographic palette.
While the biggest battle be- tween social media mobile apps was photo sharing, with Instagram getting most of the spotlight, and services like Facebook, Google+ and Flickr hoping to grab some of the attention, it seems video is stepping up in popularity.
When Twitter released Vine, a video-sharing app that allowed anyone to send 6-second video shorts, some users took to it to post various day-to-day moments.
The types of videos on Vine run the gamut from shorts of kids, pets and scenic locations to creative stop-motion videos. Being a Twitter product, Vine videos can be shared via Twitter easily.
Despite relatively low adoption, Vine still became the biggest video-sharing app in the iOS app store, handily beating out competitors like Snapchat and Keek.
Sensing a trend, Instagram countered a few months later by adding a video recording feature in its app. The difference was that Instagram’s videos were longer with a 15-second limit, complete with filters just to mix things up and it already had a large user base.
By giving users a free video feature, Instagram users don’t have a reason to try Vine, since they have the option on an app that they are already familiar with, and already have a base of followers or contacts using that service.
Vine (iOS, Windows Phone 8 and Android) allows users to create a short video clip up to six seconds long while recording through Vine’s in-app camera. The camera only records while the screen is being pressed.
I have used Vine and, while I did find the app easy to use, there wasn’t much of a community of followers for me to interact with.
Instagram video was easier to adapt to since I already have friends, family and acquaintances that I follow and who follow me. Instagram’s key advantage is that it already has a thriving community that’s familiar with the system.
Instagram’s video has already been tapped as an advertising tool, with movies like the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic pushing out 15-second movie trailers.
It will be tough for Vine to sustain its place since it is pretty much a one-trick pony. It only does six seconds of video while Instagram already has photo sharing locked in, and now offers users more creative filters and more than double the video length.