Talk about timing [previous post]. Facebook & Instagram jumps on the video bandwagon and adds video capability to its prized app. Though, it seems more of ‘me too’ act, there are a few pluses that Instagram has over Vine. The first is that it adds videos along with the existing photo stream. So it leverages the existing the social fabric of users/followers for making content discovery seamless. This is major pain point for Vine. It’s just so hard to find anything interesting on Vine! Secondly, launching on the App Store and Play Store simultaneously definitely was a smart idea. I think with the sheer number of Android users these days, big players of the likes of Facebook, Instagram cannot make them feel secondary. Better to delay the app launch then have separate launches if you ask me. The next is the videos stabilization or the cinema feature as they call it. Though this feature is limited to only iPhone as of now, I think this adds to the viewer experience. It’s pleasing to see videos without the jerks. The 15 sec limit is well irrelevant. Most likely the thought process at Instagram would have been – Vine has it, so should we, but only lets make it a bit longer. Lastly, Filters, well since the photo app has it, the videos also should have it.

So has the social video scene been cracked? Well not just yet! – in my opinion