Does Instagram’s IGTV have the potential to rival Youtube?

Does Instagram’s IGTV have the potential to rival Youtube?

Okay, first things first, what is IGTV?

IGTV is a new video service that recently launched on Instagram. It allows popular content creators and media companies to produce short or long-form videos with a twist. Unlike video streaming services like YouTube or Twitch, IGTV allows users to show and view videos in a vertical orientation, saving the mundane twist of your phone to view it in widescreen.

To most, this move from Instagram may seem rather insignificant from the surface, but the launch of this service could propel Instagram to the top of the video streaming tree very quickly. The key difference between rivals like Snapchat’s discover page and this is the fact that IGTV doesn’t restrict the length of the video content that is uploaded by users, famous or not. If you want to watch a documentary from the BBC or National Geographic in its entirety, now you can.

So, should the big players in the video content market like Youtube be worried?

The only clear disadvantage initially is the fact that IGTV provides content in vertical format. Rochelle Chhaya, managing partner – Investment at Omnicom Media Group Singapore said ‘’ Of course, with more and more players entering the content space, there is likely to be an impact on YouTube. Having said that, I still see YouTube maintaining its hold in the near future, until IGTV and other platforms are able to grow their content bases’’

We feel IGTV is a welcomed addition to the video market, it will challenge the dominance of Youtube and force creativity within the sector of video content. The way users consume video will now change and content creators will start to adapt in order to accommodate new and inventive ways of watching video like IGTV’s vertical stance.

Only time will tell whether Youtube is able to continue its reign at the top, but surely the entrance of Instagram can’t be a bad thing, right?