Facebook held a press conference at their headquarters at One Hacker Way in Menlo Park, California Thursday where CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the microphone and almost immediately turned things over to Instagram CEO co-founder Kevin Systrom to discuss the newest feature to the app, which Facebook purchased for $1 billion last year.
In response to Twitter's popular video sharing service, Instagram will now be updated with a feature that will allow it take, edit and share videos as easily as it does photos.
Twitter's Vine application has already made video sharing popular, however, in response to that, Instagram seems to have take the concept of video sharing and done its best to perfect it in the ways that Vine cannot.
For example, Vine limits its users to six seconds of video. Instagram will allow for 15 seconds of video.
"It's the right balance between not too short so that it strains your creativity and not too long where you end up having to wait a long time for something to download," Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom said.
Like Vine, Instagram video will allow users to take multiple cuts from frames simply by letting go of the record button. Unlike Vine, Instagram Video gives people the option to delete and re-record a segment of a video if you don't like the way it came out. No more having to start from scratch if a particular segment of a video goes wrong.
The biggest innovation that Instagram has over Vine is the ability to run all videos through 13 unique video filters. Similar to the way people post a picture on Instagram, once they are done recording, the next menu allows people to cycle through the 13 distinct, video only filters before they choose to share the video to Twitter, Facebook or any of the other options.
In addition to video filters, users can now select the cover frame that will appear in their friend's timeline. Vine typically selects the very first frame of all videos and uses that in the timeline. Systrom brought up that fact, although not directly in reference to Vine, and said simply "We think that's silly." Thus, Instagram Video comes stock with that option.
The final innovation that Systrom discussed was a way to make videos look that much more beautiful through a new system called "Cinema," which cleans up video that may be too wobbly and stabilizes it for a much cleaner looking "video that you can be proud of."
To use, simply tap on the normal capture button and then select the video icon. That will bring up the new menu and allow users to record their videos. Systrom twice described the new Instagram video as "The Instagram that we know and love... but it moves."
The app is currently available to update with video in the App Store and Google Play Store to all of Instagram's 13 million users.
Introducing Video on Instagram from Instagram on Vimeo.
