When Facebook held its big press event to announce Instagram Video last month, it was met with groans from many who realized it was missing a few key features that made its Twitter competitor Vine such a rich and popular video sharing community. One of the biggest omissions to Instagram Video has finally been fixed as the app gives users the ability to embed videos across the web. On Wednesday the feature will go live allowing users to access Instagram on their computers and get a special block of code on each video that will post it directly to a blog or other webpage according to a statement on Instagram's website.
The service will only be available to people with a public Instagram profile. Content displays on a web page very similarly to Instagram's web site where viewers can see the user who uploaded the video or photo as well as an area for likes and comments.
This is one of many steps by the application company to capture the growing micro video blogging market that Twitter's long shot app Vine has made so popular. When Instagram announced its fifteen-second video functionality, it appeared to be an improvement on Vine in every way. The videos can be nine seconds longer, there are custom frames and filters, the videos can be clipped and sections can be reshot. However, in practice it's had trouble drawing users away from the well-established six-second video community Twitter has gained. Vine allows user's videos to be shared more easily and can be found through an easier-to-use explore feature. Meanwhile, Instagram is still the go-to place for personal videos people wish to share with their friends.
While embedding is likely to help Instagram Video break out of its shell, only time will tell if it will ever have the ability to dethrone the community and attitude that Vine users have created.
