Instagram’s New Feature ‘Reels’ Is An Alternative To Tik Tok. But Will It Have The Mass Appeal?
A couple of days ago, when the Modi government announced the ban of 59 Chinese apps, including the famous and viral app – Tik Tok, the country found itself divided into two parts – the weepers and the reapers. The former ones being those unfortunate jilted TikTok users who in one fell swoop, lost all of their purpose, entertainment and income. The latter ones being those who couldn’t wait for all the cringe-y viral videos to get out out of their feeds. And while many mourned the loss, as others threw confetti up in celebration, Instagram seized the moment to offer just as exciting a replacement.
Rising up to the occasion and probably cashing in on the millions of followers that now roam directionless on social media, Instagram has come to the rescue with its newest short form video-sharing feature called ‘Reels’. Talking about the launch of this new feature, Instagram shared how it had already been working with quite a few individuals famous on Tik Tok and YouTube to populate relevant and interesting content on Reels for the Indian users.
India is fourth in line after Brazil, France and German for this feature to be tested. It will be released today at 7:30 PM IST, when users will be able to see content by famous creators like Radhika Bangia, Jahnavi Dasetty aka Mahathalli, Indrani Biswas aka Wondermunna, Ammy Virk and the likes of them already populated on the app.
I bet Instagram launches its TikTok-clone 'Reels' in India any day now
More info about Reels: https://t.co/06pdxpX3KP
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) July 1, 2020
Also Read : While Malaika Arora Is Glad Tik Tok Has Been Banned, There’s More To Tik Tok Than Just Cringey Videos And We Should Acknowledge That
Perfect time!https://t.co/0JWY7XbQOt
— ㆅ (@howfxr) July 1, 2020
The feature will be launched as part of Instagram, with a dedicated space in the Instagram explore section, where users will be able to access the videos if they wish to browse. Meanwhile, creators can pick their choice of in-app tracks available or custom audio to make their videos. With an option to slow or speed up the video, and even one to align yourself in the center while making several cuts, seems like Instagram really has tried hard to make this one stick.
The user will be able to access the feature by going on to the camera option and use the tool to make 15 second videos, with an availability of several effects to make it even more fun. Calling it the, “future of entertainment”, Facebook’s Vice President of Product Vishal Shah went ahead to share how the purpose of creating this was to take the Indian creators to a global level. But what he didn’t say is that this would be a smart move and it couldn’t have been timed better because Tik Tok has been banned.
And while it does seem exciting to have yet another feature like Reels, rolling in, we are yet to see if it can capture or replicate the hype that had all the users on Tik Tok. Of course, Instagram has been known to capitalise on trends- they set up the Insta stories option practically pushing Snapchat to obsolescence.
Needless to say, we’d be sitting put besides our phones this evening to see what Instagram has in store for us!
