Instagram announced on Friday that it is preparing to launch its own video-sharing feature, Reels, in the United States and 50 other countries, just a week after it began testing the platform in India.
Reels’ announcement comes when TikTok is in a recently weakened position, after India banned the short-form video app and the Trump administration indicated it would do the same.
The reels will allow people to record and edit 15-second videos with music and audio, and upload them to their stories and Instagram’s Explore feature. An official release date has yet to be announced.
Instagram and its parent company, Facebook (full board)It has a history of mimicking new features in other applications and succeeding. In 2016, the company launched its Stories feature, which allows people to share content that disappears after 24 hours. Eight months later, the competitor stopped Snapchat (SNAP) Exceeded the daily Snapchat user count. In mid-2018, Stories was more than twice as popular as Snapchat.
Apparently, Instagram is not the only company looking to compete against TikTok. YouTube is developing its own TikTok rival Shorts, which will launch later this year, according to The Information. And Snapchat may also launch its own short-form video feature, TechCrunch reports.
Still, TikTok appreciates the challenge.
“It’s great to see that tech companies appreciate the refreshing and creative experience that TikTok brings to people, which has been even more apparent as families have been trapped in their homes in recent months,” said a spokesman for TikTok to CNN. “We have always believed that open competition brings enormous benefits to consumers.”
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