Instagram debuted a new feature in its Explore section on Halloween — one that seems to channel the best of Twitter Moments and Snapchat to create a rolling video stream.
The feature, which can be found by swiping through the Explore Carousel invites the user to "Watch Halloween." After clicking the play button, a curated video roll appears. The videos feature filmmaker Zach King — who's popular on social media — pranking a trick-or-treater, model Heidi Klum getting ready for Halloween and Astronaut Scott Kelly acting creepy aboard the International Space Station.
Other spotlighted videos star the Obamas, singer John Mayer and celebrity chef Alton Brown. Celebrities aren't the only Instagram users highlighted by the new feature, which is also being promoted on the app's homepage.
"This is a new way to experience events and big moments, as they happen, through the eyes of the Instagram community," Gabe Madway, an Instagram spokesperson, told Mashable in an email. "There’s a ton of great video on Instagram, and we wanted to bring it all into one viewing experience. People love to come together and celebrate big events on Instagram, so it makes a lot of sense to do this on Halloween, which is one of our biggest days."
Twitter has already taken a whack at packaging social media content around a single event with its Moments feature. While moments lets users do the packaging, the Instagram video viewer is being curated in realtime by Instagram's community team.
Once each video clip is over, the next one automatically plays, but you can also swipe up to scroll through and then tap on the screen to start the roll again. The feature seemed to be increasing the likes for videos included in the curated roundup.
The video viewer, which doesn't have a specific product name, is U.S. only for now, but Instagram expects "to roll it out more broadly for additional events in the future," Madway said, adding that the Halloween feature will be updated past midnight on Halloween.
"People can continue to check back and see new content, as it happens," he said.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Post a Comment
EmoticonClick to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.