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Introducing Instagram Reels
- xwowsersx 6y agoThis is a response to TikTok, I guess?
- strikelaserclaw 6y agoat what point is competition stifled when large companies can just totally copy competition by throwing money at something. In ten years, we will have an American Samsung.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoHow would you address the problem when you can’t copyright a business model or an idea? It’s very true the value is in the execution, and in a lot of cases, an enormous tech company with effectively limitless resources will always be able to execute better than you. I’m a fan of using regulation against such entities and behaviors, I’m just unsure what the antitrust or monopoly issue is on short social video clips. You could build something similar with Backblaze, Cloudflare, and mobile apps.
- bohm 6y agowhere's the problem for the consumer?
- toomuchtodo 6y agoOne might argue the consumer doesn't get access to products that could be superior due to incumbents choking out innovators (like saplings trying to grow in a forest below mature trees blocking out the sun).
- cocktailpeanuts 6y agoif you're building a business which a large company can just come in and copy by throwing money at it, then you're doing it wrong. You should either have a plan or try hard to come up with one to prevent that situation, or avoid that market altogether. This is business 101 and is the most frequently asked question when you pitch a VC: "What will you do when Google copies you?"
- tarr11 6y agoTiktok is worth about 50 billion dollars. Hard to argue that’s “doing it wrong”
- cocktailpeanuts 6y agoThe valuation has nothing to do with "doing it right", especially when it's not even a public company. Also, TikTok won't just die because of Instagram. Instagram failed so many times with their copycat products. Which is exactly my point. The product will win if a large company can't win simply by throwing money at it.
- augustt 6y agoAt least an American Samsung would be useful, if it means bringing back semiconductor manufacturing to the US. Better than having our brightest engineers work on copying each other's photo apps.
- cameronbrown 6y agoIt's not about large competitors with deep pockets, but that network effects mean a shitty FB clone can be worth more than entire businesses designed around specific concepts.
- jp57 6y agoIt is an interesting definition of competition if you can stifle it by allowing competitors who offer very similar or identical products. When I was a kid that was competition.
- strikelaserclaw 6y agoi speak in the spirit of creating an environment that doesn't allow large companies to destroy small companies by copying their ideas or buying them out, which i believe is beneficial to society at large in the longer run. It is my fundamental belief that if left unchecked, large tech companies will become monopolies in their fields (which might already have happened).
- thehappypm 6y agoInstagram Stories were not quite a Snapchat-killer, but they did take a huge chunk of the Snapchat market share. This could be similar.
- raiyu 6y agoThey weren't a Snapchat killer but they immediately cut off future growth and stalled it out for a solid 2-3 years. You don't have to kill the competition in social to win, you just need to stop their growth. They can retain some percentage of users but if the growth is stalled out and you are dominate them in 5:1 marketshare it's as good as dead.
- peruvian 6y agoSnapchat is interesting - in my age group (mid to late 20s), it got obliterated by Instagram a few years ago, to the point where it feels "old" to use it. However it is very popular with younger people (college and early 20s).
- caiobegotti 6y agoWho couldn't see this coming, honestly? Zero surprises and it's the obvious move to try to consolidate a market in which they are pretty big already.
- csours 6y agoDo it for the Reels? I'm not sure the tone of Instagram really agrees with the content of TikTok, which feels like it picked up where Vine left off.
- robjan 6y agoThe picture / TV sharing feature of Instagram is curated while stories tend to be a bit more candid in my experience. Think this is trying to add another level of more transient sharing.
- ChefboyOG 6y agoI wonder if this will work as well as Stories did. I mean, technologically it will, sure, but if you start with the customer in mind, Snapchat is not TikTok. Instagram and Snapchat share the same market. Like Facebook, they originated among college students, and became the default platforms of that young adult demographic. Instagram copying Snapchat features is brutal to Snapchat because Snapchat power users were probably Instagram/Facebook power users as well. TikTok and Musical.ly, as has been written to death by tech journalists, are much more dominate in a younger demographic. They're sort of unique among social platforms in their ability to do so. I wonder if Instagram has enough penetration in that demographic to really syphon off a meaningful chunk of users, or if this will just block Instagram's existing users from migrating?
- cameronbrown 6y agoAnecdata for sure, but my younger aged family members (and their general age group) on TikTok are all on Instagram.
- kenjackson 6y agoAnother data point. My sons group are all on both, but no one actively uses IG. TikTok is their app of choice. My son says IG is boring. I think Reels has a major uphill journey.
- cvhashim 6y agoTo add to that anecdote, my younger siblings use both IG and TikTok. And Snapchat is pretty much old news according to them.
- matsemann 6y agoCopying snapchat to make stories. TikTok to make Reels. And fb originally bought Instagram. Can the big players just copy or buy every competitor at some point and remain on top?
- cblconfederate 6y agodid they hurt their competitors by copycatting stuff? It seems like tiktok has a different user base that does not overlap with the way ppl use instagram.
- ceejayoz 6y ago> did they hurt their competitors by copycatting stuff? They kneecapped Snapchat pretty effectively when they stole the story feature, first in Instagram and then in Facebook proper.
- cfors 6y agoThe big differentiator between these isn't per se the way that content is shared/created, but the network itself. So, as long as the network is intact, then in my opinion yes the big players can just copy/buy every competitor and remain on top.
- rglover 6y agoShould've called it "Moments" or "Memes."
- BiasRegularizer 6y agoI personally like the name Reels, it implies a level curation needed in the process.
- wojcikstefan 6y agoThis flips the typical narrative of "Chinese companies copy our products and their government lets them" on its head. I understand why this is a valid business move, but I think that the sense of moral superiority over China that is so pervasive in conversations with Americans is even less credible now.
- thieving_magpie 6y agoI think the criticism tends to be more focused on corporate espionage which this is decidedly not. I wouldn't say this is flipping any narrative on its head. I can't even tell the major differences between vine, tiktok, stories, snapchat, and now reels.
- wojcikstefan 6y agoThat’s a fair point.
- pjc50 6y agoRealistically, a lot of companies copy each other's products and features, within the American tech scene. The cure - software patents - is worse than the disease; remember Amazon's one click patent? How many team chat apps appeared after Slack, for example?
- tambourine_man 6y agoSlack may have discovered a marketing niche, but team chats existed for decades.
- nicoburns 6y ago> The cure - software patents - is worse than the disease Might that not also apply to preventing Chinese companies copying American hardware products or manufacturing processes?
- pjc50 6y ago
- romanovcode 6y agoI have to say they are really annoying in "Explore" tab because they take more than half of the screen-space.
- Spivak 6y agoI feel like IG missed the mark with the 15 second video limit if they want an actual competitor to TT. The really really good TT content: original songwriters and musicians, semi-pro chefs, artists, woodworking, blacksmithing, skateboarding, sewing, just really passionate nerds teaching or showing off their skills benefit from longer-form videos. The format of TT has made it really easy for people to share their hobbies but isn't plagued by the Wadsworth Constant.
- arusahni 6y agoI'm hoping, as they push more to support creation, they address their compression/encoding on Android devices. On my Pixel, the only way I can get high-quality videos in my stories is by recording using the Camera app, and then sharing to Instagram. If I add any text/sticker/overlay, the final video has obvious artifacting.
- Miner49er 6y agoI see the advantage of tying it in with Instagram, I think it will help user growth early on, but I think it will likely inhibit growth later on. What exactly are you signing up for when you sign up for Instagram? Are you signing up for Reels, OG Instagram, or Stories? Stories at least sort of made sense with the original Instagram, but Reels doesn't feel like a fit at all to me. The bloat of the app at this point seems like a barrier to using it. Maybe they'll be able to spin off a separate Reels app as well at some point? That's the only way I'd ever be interested in it.
- yalogin 6y agoKinda lines up well with MS talking with tiktok. Wonder why MS wants tiktok still? The US and India banned them and now Instagram copied them too. I do t know how the inluencers move across social networks but why would users stick to tiktok? In that scenario why would MS want it unless its for an extravagant discount?
- Kye 6y agoThey might want the people working on it who know how to work with video.
- g5becks 6y agoI can remember a slew of video based apps that Instagram killed when it added video in the early days - Viddy, SocialCam, Kik, Vine, they were all in competition and Instagram came and ate their lunch, then did the same to Snapchat, now tiktok.