Instagram Reels Release Just A Coincidence?

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17th August 2020, Kathmandu

Ever since Instagram Reels has marked its presence in the internet world, people aren’t just shutting up about how opportunistic this venture seems. Let’s discuss TikTok vs Instagram Reels once and for all. Was it just pure coincidence or an opportunistic venture?

What is TikTok?

According to Wikipedia: “TikTok/Douyin is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based Internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming. It is used to create short music, lip-sync, dance, comedy and talent videos of 3 to 15 seconds, and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds.”

What is Instagram Reels?

Very similar to Tiktok, Reels is Facebook’s recent rival venture against Tiktok(as people claim). It was launched on August 5 in the US. Here, users can record and edit short videos along with the background music akin to TikTok. The video length can be upto 15 seconds. However, it is not separate from the Instagram app itself. It can be considered an extension of a wide range of Instagram features.

Were Instagram Reels release just a coincidence?

We are all aware of the Tiktok controversy. Its future has been in hanging balance in the US. Similarly, owing to geopolitical issues, India has banned TikTok and some 58 other Chinese apps. Therefore, this is an attempt of Facebook to harness the opportunity, claim the experts.

It’s no hidden fact that Instagram Reels is very similar to the TikTok video-sharing platform. But the product head of Instagram recently told the reporters that the release timing was just a coincidence. They had been planning it for a long time. Whatever the case, it will be interesting for us to see how Reels performs compared to Tiktok.

Vishal Shah said,”[TikTok] certainly didn’t invent short-form video, but they innovated it,” Shah told reporters, “We’ve been clear that formats in the past were inspired by other companies…I believe that consumers having choice results in better products.”

Number of Users[TikTok vs Reels]

Instagram has more than 1 billion global users. Whereas, Tiktok has little over 2.3 billion global downloads. Whereas, in the US, Tiktok users are around 100 million and Instagram between 100 to 150 million.

“We Tested Instagram Reels, the TikTok Clone. What a Dud.” It’s a NYTimes’ headline for an article on the comparison of the apps.

Instagram Reels was first launched in Brazil in November 2019 for testing purposes. Today, it has expanded to India, Germany, and some other countries. Slowly, it is planning to go global.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how this rivalry moves forward. Will Instagram Reels sustain in the long run? Let us know in the comments below.