Tag: video platform

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Instagram – now supporting IGTV and competing with YouTube

Instagram is launching its YouTube clone, IGTV, on Android in a few weeks | Android

IGTV in action

Authority

Meet Instagram’s YouTube Clone: IGTV | Gizmodo Australia

Here’s IGTV: Instagram’s vertical answer to YouTube | FastCompany

My Comments

There have been some recent situations where YouTube has become arrogant with how they treat end-users, content creators and advertisers thanks to their effective monopoly position for user-generated video content. One of these was a fight that Google and Amazon got into over voice-driven personal assistants and this led to Google removing YouTube support from Amazon’s Echo Show smart display. I even wrote that it is high time that YouTube faces competition in order to lift its game.

Initially Framasoft who is a French developers got working on an open-source video-distribution mechanism called “PeerTube” with a view to have it compete against YouTube.

But Instagram, owned by Facebook, have set up their own video-sharing platform called IGTV. This will be available as a separate iOS/Android mobile-platform app but also allow the clips to appear on your main Instagram user experience.

Initially this service will offer video in a vertical format for up to 1 hour long. The format is chosen to complement the fact that it is likely to be used on a smartphone or tablet that is handheld. The one-hour length will be offered to select content creators rather than to everyone while most of us will end up with 10 minutes. This may also appeal to the creation of “snackable” video content.

Currently Instagram offers video posting for 60 seconds on its main feed or 15 seconds in its Stories function. This is why I often see Stories pertaining to the same event having many videos daisy-chained.

The IGTV user experience will have you immediately begin watching video content from whoever you follow on Instagram. There will be playlist categories like “For You” (videos recommended for you), “Following” (videos from whom you follow), “Popular” (popular content) and “Continue Watching” (clips you are already working through).

The social-media aspect will allow you to like or comment on videos as well as sharing them to your friends using Instagram’s Direct mode. As well, each Instagram creator will have their own IGTV channel which will host the longer clips.

A question that can easily come up is whether Instagram will make it work for usage beyond mobile-platform viewing. This means support for horizontal aspect ratios, or viewing on other devices like snart-display devices of the Echo Home ilk, regular computers or Smart TV / set-top devices including games consoles.

It is an effort by Instagram and Facebook to compete for video viewers and creators but I see the limitation to the vertical format as being a limitation if the idea is to directly compete with YouTube. But Facebook and Instagram need to look at what YouTube isn’t offering and the platforms they have deserted in order to provide an edge over them.

Google not allowing Amazon to provide a native client tor the popular YouTube service on the Echo Show highlights how much control they have over the user-generated video market

Over the last many years, YouTube established a name for itself regarding the delivery of user-generated video content through our computers. This included video created by ordinary householders ranging from the many puppy and kitten videos through to personal video travelogues. But a lot of professional video creators have used it to run showreels or simply host their regular content such as corporate videos and film trailers, with some TV channels even hosting shows for a long time on it.

After Google took over YouTube, there have been concerns about its availability across platforms other than the Web. One of the first instances that occurred was for Apple to be told to drop their native YouTube client from iOS with users having to install a Google-developed native client for this service on their iOS devices.

Recently, Google pulled YouTube from Amazon’s Echo Show device ostensibly due to it not having a good-enough user interface. But it is really down to Google wanting to integrate YouTube playback in to their Google Home and Chromecast platforms with the idea of running it as a feature exclusive to those voice-driven home assistant platforms.

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These instances can affect whether you will be able to view YouTube videos on your Smart TV, set-top box, games console, screen-equipped smart speaker or similar device. It will also affect whether a company who designs one of these devices can integrate YouTube functionality in to these devices in a native form or improve on this functionality through the device’s lifecycle. The concern will become stronger if the device or platform is intended to directly compete with something Google offers.

There are some video services like Vimeo and Dailymotion that offer support for user-generated and other video content. But these are services that are focused towards businesses or professionals who want to host video content and convey a level of uninterrupted concentration. This can be a limitation for small-time operators such as bloggers and community organisations who want to get their feet wet with video.

Facebook is starting to provide some form of competition in the form of their Watch service but this will require users to have presence on the Facebook social network, something that may not be desirable amongst some people. Amazon have opened up their Prime streaming-video platform to all sorts of video publishers and creators, positioning it as Amazon Video Direct. But this will require users to be part of the Amazon Prime platform.

But for people who publish to consumer-focused video services like YouTube, competition will require them to put content on all the services. For small-time video publishers who are focusing on video content, this will involve uploading to different platforms for a wider reach. On the other hand, one may have to use a video-distribution platform which allows for “upload once, deliver many” operation.

Competition could open up multiple options for publishers, equipment / platform designers, and end-users. For example, it could open up monetisation options for publishers’ works, simplify proper dealing with copyrighted works used within videos, open up native-client access for more platforms, amongst other things.

But there has to be enough competition to keep the market sustainable and each of the platforms must be able to support the ability to view a video without the user being required to create an account beforehand. The market should also support the existence of niche providers so as to cater to particular publishers’ and viewers needs.

In conclusion, competition could make it harder for YouTube to effectively “own” the user-generated consumer video market and control how this market operates including what devices the content appears on.