Instagram vs. Vine – What’s Your Choice?

So Instagram finally pushed out their new update which includes the ability to add up to 15 seconds of video. This is obviously Facebook’s natural defense to Vine’s 6 second video capabilities.

Now the questions on everyone’s mind is whether or not this is a good thing and will it be a solution that fights off Vine’s emerging presence in the disposable content segment.

The entire concept of short attention span content creation and consumption isn’t new. I remember using an excellent app back in 2007 called 12-Seconds. Yes, it simply allowed you to shoot 12 seconds of video and share them to Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunaltey the entire concept of video sharing was too new back then. Plus, there simply wasn’t enough users with mobile devices capable of using the platform. The service wasn’t able to build enough traction and it eventually shut down. Had they launched last year it would have most likely already been acquired a billion dollars.

I like how adding video to Instagram’s platform adds a deeper layer of interaction. If you want to scroll through the river of content to view pictures, you can still do so – but you need to tap the image to pause the video if you pause for too long. I’m not too keen on that element; I like Instragam for the photos and I like Vine for the videos.

Expect to see a massive surge in user generated video. My stream is filled with videos now, unfortunately nothing too groundbreaking, just random experimentation at this stage. The eventual progression may lead to native video advertising for larger brands. It has the potential to create another new targeted channel for short video commercials.

Which side of the fence do you fall on? Do you like the new video feature within Instagram?