Today, live from Facebook’s press event, the company just announced that its bringing video to Instagram with a brand new set of features. In what appears to be direct competition for Twitter’s rapidly growing Vine video sharing app, Instagram will soon allow users to share similar short video clips. On stage, Instagram demoed an updated iOS app that now includes a button for video capture that will allow users to create 3-15 second long videos using multiple clips.
It also announced that it has partnered with an artist to create 13 brand new custom filters specifically for video and a handful of leading experts to integrate “mind blowing” cinematic video stabilization features (something that isn’t too great in a lot of other apps).
As for where videos will appear, like photos, Instagram says “your video will appear on your profile and in feed. If your visibility is set to private, only your approved followers can see videos or photos you share.”
The video feature will also be available on the web, allowing users to view Instagram videos in any browser without having to use the apps.
Another subtle feature of Instagram video: users can select what frame to start a video, which will also make that frame the thumbnail when appearing in the content feed.
There is more information about the new video features including a video showing of the cinematic stabilization feature on Instagram’s help page here. The updated Instagram apps are available on both iOS and Android now.
Some stats on Instagram shared during the presentation today: -16B photos shared -1B likes a day -130M active users
Leading up to today’s event there were rumors that Facebook could be unveiling a Google Reader alternative of sorts, but so far we’ve only seen the new video features for Instagram.
