Instagram To Shut Down Its YouTube Competitor IGTV App

Instagram, owned by Meta took a big decision of discontinuing Instagram TV (IGTV) a standalone app for sharing long videos, instead, they will focus upon keeping all the videos on the main Instagram application. IGTV was started in the year 2018 as a competitor of YouTube but did not catch much user attention. 

Although at the time of launching it was estimated that people will like it but it did not happen as most of the population was already present on YouTube, thus making the IGTV app unsuccessful. Also, the introduction of reels and its convenience of making short videos made it more popular than IGTV.

Instagram took this decision at the starting of this week and in the blog post they said, “efforts to make videos as simple and feasible to discover and produce as possible.”

In the blog post, they also announced that they will now focus completely upon the main app and it will have the feature of full-screen along with tap-to-mute functionality. They also added that the company will be introducing easier ways to share and view videos.

Instagram TV or IGTV was launched in the year 2018 with the purpose of providing people a platform that was easier to use and interact upon. It was made as a competitor of YouTube with the long-time-limit video. They also added an IGTV button, which on clicking brought the users to the main app where they could watch the complete video. But the button was removed by Instagram, stating that it created confusion among the users and also announced that it will be rebranded as Instagram TV.

Now after discontinuing the IGTV, Instagram is intending to introduce a new technology, which will work upon starting adverts on Reels. This news came from Meta and they also added that the complete services of IGTV will be closed from mid-March. Along with this, the advertisement known as IGTV ads, which were present in the videos has been completely removed from the application. Also, the company has already started giving a 1-minute time duration in the reels making it more popular among the audiences, as Instagram is not just a photo-sharing app.

Instagram in its blog post also added “Reels continues to be a growing and important part of Instagram and we are excited to invest even more in this format,” as reels have been the biggest part in making Instagram the most popular online platform and also contributed to the engagement growth. Furthermore, Instagram is also planning to introduce advertisements on reels and added, “that they will be experimenting with a technology that will introduce advertisements on Reels.