Instagram has upped the ante as far as its rivalry with Snapchat is concerned by introducing a section that will allow users to view events themed videos, something that Snapchat already has in place in the form of events themed reels. The company announced the development in a statement that was released on Wednesday.
According to a report on Fortune Magazine, "The Snapchat envy continues. Instagram's envy of Snapchat didn't end with Stories-now it's adding an events-themed video section akin to the ephemeral messaging app's event-based reels of photos and videos. On Wednesday, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app introduced a new channel to its Explore section that is focused on user videos captured during specific events. The new channel will be customized for each user and display videos for events based on a user's preferences and habits, according to the company's blog post."
The report went on to add, "This new type of channel is similar to the interest or topic-based video channels Instagram debuted earlier this summer. It's also not the first time Instagram has experimented with event-themed video. For Halloween last year, it created a special section where users could watch handpicked videos of the holiday."
The website Recode provided further information on the new feature, "The company was already recommending videos around specific topics, like comedians or skateboarding, but events are typically more timely and harder to curate. Especially newsy events. Instagram will use an algorithm to curate the video feeds around these events, according to a spokesperson, and humans will only get involved if and when users report a specific post. Each user will see events personalized for them, so Instagram may suggest different events for you than it will for your friends. It's worth noting that Instagram has tried this before. Last Halloween it also launched a video-only feed for specific events, but those feeds were human-curated. Pulling together video around specific events is one of the key areas both Twitter and Snapchat are trying to own, too. So it's no surprise to see Instagram get in on the action. The new feature is launching on Wednesday only in the U.S.."
