Instagram, the Facebook-owned social network application, announced today it will be adding an embed feature to share photos and newly-launched videos. This now means that you’ll be able to share Instagram content across the web without needing any third party applications, and is a direct shot at their competitor: the Twitter-owned Vine. As reported by cnet.com:
“The Facebook-owned application, which has more than 130 million active users, announced Wednesday that it has updated with Web embeds for its photos and videos. There’s now a share button you can click to copy embedding code, which you then can paste on a Web site or blog to share the Instagram content there. The new feature is accessible from photo or video pages…Instagram Web embeds allow people, for the first time, to experience filtered moments, wholly in tact with attribution, outside of the service, which means members may benefit from a boost of additional exposure and Instagram could attract even more users to its service.”
Now of course this was the next logical step for Instagram, who recently added a tagging feature similar to parent company Facebook. And with video typically requiring more than a mobile-only experience. They also had to be sure to be at least on par with Vine, who already had an embed feature. According to allthingsd.com, the move is more than just matching Vine:
“this isn’t just a distribution play, or even an affront simply to Vine. Instagram wants to own “real time,” a space long ago staked out by Twitter as the go-to option for global discussion on an event when it’s happening. The Boston Marathon bombings, the Oscars, a tornado on the ground — they’re all moments that require a fast, lightweight tool to capture them. And when those moments are captured well, much of the world’s attention can focus on them.”
So the battle continues between Instagram and Vine for video supremacy. And as stated above, it’s a battle for real time media over all. Now Instagram does seem to have a leg up here with their 15-second videos and 130 million active users who uploaded over 5 million videos in the first day of the video feature. In the overall battle for realtime, while Twitter leads now, Instagram is poised to takeover simply because a picture is worth a thousand words—not 140 characters—and it works in any language.
What do you want to see next for Instagram or Vine?
