IGTV is a new Instagram app to post videos up to one hour long, recorded with your mobile vertically. It was unveiled at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday and is Instagram's first real attempt to compete with YouTube and other video platforms, including Facebook, which has owned Instagram since 2012. The name – IGTV – is the coupling of the abbreviations with which the name of Instagram (IG) and TV is abbreviated, referring to traditional television.
IGTV can already be downloaded as a separate app from the well-known Instagram app, but it will also be available as a section of the normal Instagram app, which until now only allowed you to publish photos or videos no longer than a minute (in addition to the well-known “stories “, Which however disappear after 24 hours). Anyone who uses it will be able to freely upload their videos and open their own “channel”, more or less like you do with photos on Instagram. For the moment, however, only a part of users will be able to upload videos that are one hour long: the others will have to stop at 10 minutes. The limit will then be removed over the next few months.
Changing the traditional rules of the game a little, but actually adapting to the now prevailing way of recording videos, IGTV will only allow you to publish videos recorded vertically. They will occupy the entire size of the screen and can be commented, sent to other users or appreciated with a ❤️, just like you already do with photos on Instagram. If you do not download the new app, to access IGTV – whose symbol resembles the shape of a TV – there will be a button at the top right of the main screen of the Instagram app and one on the pages of users who have published videos on IGTV.
Instagram said it has surpassed one billion active users each month, less than YouTube has (1.8 billion) but has been growing for years and with a very young majority of users, which is very attractive to all advertisers. For the moment, however, IGTV will not contain advertising and therefore will not offer income opportunities to those who publish their videos there, as happens on YouTube and – to a lesser and experimental extent – on Facebook. However, during the presentation, Instagram chief Kevin Systrom said he wanted to find a way to be “fair” to content creators, especially those who prove capable of building large following. For now, Systrom also said, Instagram has no plans to pay to sponsor the creation of original content, like Facebook and YouTube do.
