Instagram Expands Long-Form Video and TV Viewing Features
Instagram is rolling out significant video updates in the United States, allowing creators to upload content up to 90 minutes long and switch video orientation to horizontal.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
Bridging Short-Form Discovery and Long-Form Streaming
The popular social media landscape has long relied on bite-sized snippets, where users stumble upon brief rants, highlights, or conversations without necessarily following creators to external platforms. While short-form content drives visibility across platforms like social media, platforms are increasingly looking for ways to capture the broader clip economy by keeping users within a single ecosystem.
To address this shift, Instagram has announced plans to expand tests in the United States that give creators the ability to upload content reaching up to 90 minutes in length. In addition to extending video duration, the update allows creators to flip a video’s orientation to horizontal, bridging the gap between mobile discovery and traditional viewing formats.
Building the Best Place for Social Entertainment
According to Tessa Lyons, vice president of product at Instagram, the platform's overarching goal is to establish itself as a premier destination for digital entertainment. Lyons notes that creativity and entertainment are not constrained by brief time limits, pointing to the platform's broader overhaul of video functionality.
By streamlining the viewer journey, Instagram aims to ensure that users who discover a snippet or a discussion clip can easily transition to watching full-length videos. Rather than forcing audiences to look elsewhere for complete episodes, the platform intends to serve as a centralized hub where users can find short clips on mobile and later stream the complete content.
Episodic Content and the New Series Feature
As part of its ongoing video expansion, Instagram is scaling up creator tools designed to turn individual video snippets into episodic content. A newly developed feature called "Series" is already available for select creators within the mobile app and is currently being evaluated for television screens.
The Series functionality is intended to track viewer engagement closely, allowing the algorithm to surface subsequent episodes based on past viewing habits. Lyons explains that the system aims to seamlessly recommend follow-up episodes as soon as they become available to interested viewers.
Targeting the Home Screen and TV Viewing
Instagram is placing significant emphasis on the television viewing experience, exploring methods to make watching content on home screens feel inherently social. Planned features include a Friends tab that highlights what connected users have been watching, alongside smartphone integration that allows a user's phone to function as a TV remote.
This push into home screens positions the platform to compete more directly within the broader streaming ecosystem. Industry analysts note that these updates challenge established platforms, including YouTube’s TV dominance, by integrating short-form discovery directly with large-screen long-form playback.
Lessons Learned From Past Video Initiatives
Instagram's latest strategy reflects a deliberate effort to avoid the pitfalls of past video initiatives, most notably IGTV. Launched in 2018 as Meta's previous attempt at expansive video content, IGTV struggled to connect with users and was ultimately discontinued.
A primary limitation of the previous initiative was its strict reliance on vertical video, which frustrated viewers who wanted the option to rotate their screens. By contrast, the current product strategy explicitly acknowledges that while short-form discovery thrives on vertical video, long-form viewing naturally aligns with horizontal formats.
Cohesive Product Design for Creators and Viewers
The fundamental design challenge for the engineering team involves making vertical short-form discovery and horizontal long-form streaming work together cohesively within a single product. Creators who record content using standard podcast microphones or professional studio setups can now link their short clips directly back to the primary full-length source files.
By balancing mobile devices as tools for discovery and television screens as destinations for extended viewing, Instagram hopes to reshape how audiences consume digital media. The ongoing US tests will help determine how effectively these tools scale for everyday users and creators alike.
Sources
- WIREDInstagram Is a Streaming Service Now
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