Instagram Video: Function For Video Sharing Coming June 20

Instagram, the photo sharing social media app, has announced its intentions to add a six to 10 second video sharing function by as early as June 20.

This is almost certainly an answer to Vine, the most prominent micro video social media app, which has been growing faster than Instagram among certain demographics since its release early this year.

Instagram, can I have a private word with you? I can? Ok! ... Just real quick:

WHY IN RYAN GOSLING’S NAME ARE YOU SHAMELESSLY COPYING VINE?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? FACEBOOK?! LEARN SHAME!!!!

I’m sorry you had to see that, but I just cannot help but protect my beloved Vine. Given Vine is not the only video sharing tool, websites like Telly and even SnapChat have video sharing functions, but Vine was and still is the purest. Now, Instagram sees a threat from Vine, and wants to box out Vine from it market that its creators pioneered.

How will silly, homemade videos fare alongside the heavily filtered, artistic fare that is native to Instagram? Do they actually intend to have their user’s feeds be mixed between video and photographs? Will they allow the filters to go onto the Vines? All of these will be answered in time, but what is clear now is that this new function is an admission of defeat.

Like when Facebook bought Instagram for over a billion dollars, it is almost always a point of contention between social media giants when they copy, or acquire one another. Clearly, they want a piece of what the other platform has already got, and, despite the supposed endless creative talent, they cannot upstage their competitors with their own original ideas, and so goes the story of the game.

I, for one, intend to protest Instagram’s Vine crib sheeting. And by “protest” I mean “Make Vines as I usually would.”