Instagram Adds Social Video Capture Freatures to App

Facebook announced today that their $1 billion baby, Instagram has integrated nifty video features into the app. Instagram’s addition of social video features places the app and Facebook head to head in competition for eyeballs with Twitter’s Vine mobile app. Vine allows users to upload and share 6 second video clips, whereas Instagram will enable user to upload video up to 15 seconds in length.

According to tech blog Mac Rumors, Instagram’s video features will have much of the same functionality as Vine with a few key differences. The tech news blog elaborates saying that, “Instagram users can capture collages of video, taking a few seconds of footage at a time before moving on to a different angle or shot. Instagram also includes simple editing tools, allowing users to remove unwanted clips… Video for Instagram includes 13 new custom filters that have been specially designed for video plus Cinema, which is cinematic stabilization for videos that will change video forever. Unlike Vine videos, Instagram videos play just once right inside the Instagram feed and do not loop. Videos will have a cover photo and will be displayed alongside photos.”

Instagram is the biggest mobile app success story in start-up history. With 130 million active users and 16 billion photo uploads it is one of the most popular social applications available on the app store. As an iPhone app developer it is likely that with Facebook’s backing we will continue to see Instagram hit impressive milestones and innovative product releases. The New York City iPhone app developer community is looking forward to test driving these new video features. Developers are also curios whether these video features will be released as an SDK for 3rd parties to integrate into their apps.