Instagram launches what content creators have been waiting for - hour-long videos, on a brand new app!

Instagram announces the launch of IGTV, its new app for watching and creating long-form videos. It works as either a standalone iOS or Android app, or as an experience built directly into the main app.

Taking YouTube by the horns, Instagram has announced, with much fanfare, the launch of IGTV – a video content-only wing of Instagram. This will let users upload videos that are up to one-hour long - a huge difference from its incumbent 1 minute-limit.

Making it official at a rather flamboyant event held in San Francisco, IG CEO Kevin Systrom alluded rather explicitly to their intention of imploring content creators to make Instagram-first videos.

“It’s time for video to move forward, and evolve. IGTV is for watching long-form videos from your favourite creators,” said Kevin, at the event.

It will be a separate section – a separate app, rather – that can also be accessed through a brand new TV-shaped button above ‘Stories’ on the IG home-screen. While it cannot be used by newer accounts and accounts with relatively smaller follower-bases currently, it will be opened to everyone soon. It will be similar to having one’s own YouTube channel, where other IG users can subscribe to follow your content.

Much like Youtube, IG will also have a content discovery algorithm that will populate your feed with videos they find relevant to your taste and interests. People will be able to upload vertical videos on the app. The app went live on both iOS and Android as well as on the Instagram app. And just like its older cousins, users will get notified about the topics and handles they choose to follow. Another differentiator from good-old Instagram is that creators will be able to put links in the description of their videos.

Finally, before signing off, Kevin revealed that IGTV is ad-free for now, but that will not continue as they wanted to help content creators monetise their content, and ad-revenue-sharing would be a possible avenue to do that.