In early August, Microsoft announced it was in talks to buy a part of the TikTok social network from its parent company, ByteDance. This would be just one of the big world companies news if US President Donald Trump had not got not involved in the whole story.
The potential sale of TikTok
Namely, in the last few months, President Trump has publicly accused the Chinese application of posing a great danger to American national security and even proposed that its use be banned. It is interesting, and quite unique that Microsoft is making an offer only for a part of TikTok, more precisely for four countries: the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
This potential sale would be a precedent in the world of social media because one part of TikTok would be owned by an American and the other part owned by a Chinese company. In this precarious situation for the future of the otherwise very popular network among younger age groups, Instagram recognized the opportunity in the market and officially released its response to TikTok, Instagram Reels.
The option is available in about 50 countries including the USA, UK and Japan, for Android and IOS operating systems (in its test phase, this option was already available in the markets of India and Brazil). It is obvious that with this move, Instagram seeks to further increase its user base, as well as their time spent on the platform, and at the same time position itself among the leading platforms for the production and consumption of user-generated video content.
What is Instagram Reels?
As already hinted at in the introduction when compared to TikTok, the new Instagram Reels option allows you to record videos for up to 15 seconds with a full range of filters and effects with the addition of popular music. Reels will get its place on the Explore page along with IGTV, Shop and other Instagram options. Private profiles will still be able to share their video content only in their closed circle of followers where the original audio content, as well as the video content itself, will no longer be able to be used or shared by persons who do not follow them.
For public profiles, authors will be able to share content on their feed so that all followers can see it, and it will also appear in Explorer where it can be captured by a wider audience via a song, hashtag, or even effect. In both cases it is possible to share the ‘reel’ as Instagram’s Story where it will of course only be visible for the next 24 hours.
Instagram claims that it is a similar format, and that TikTok only popularized the short video format, not designed it. Precisely because of the potential sale of a part of TikTok, the winner of this fight with short videos will soon be known, because if a situation really arises where this social platform will have to operate under different management structures in different markets, Instagram will surely come out as a stronger option considering its strong background and the fact that since 2012 it has been part of the Facebook group.
For Instagram, a release of options very similar to those popularized by other social networks is nothing new. In 2016, when Instagram Story was introduced, one of the main formats of the competing platform was also taken over, but this time it was Snapchat. Interestingly, it was with this move that Instagram’s skyrocketing to the very top of the most popular social networks began.
Source: Lider media
