RIP Vine?
About ten days ago, the popular Facebook-owned photo sharing mobile app Instagram released video capabilities, giving its users the ability to film fifteen second video clips and share them with their friends. Within the next two days, the number of shares on Twitter for Vine dipped significantly, as you can see below.
Ironically enough, Instagram video now sees a greater amount of shares on Twitter than Vine, which is owned by Twitter itself. Talk about being humbled on your home court. Let’s do a comparison of the two services
For those of you who never really got into Vine and don’t know how it works, I recommend you read my post about Why and How to use Vine, but to give you a brief summary– Vine is a video sharing platform that allows users to make six second videos cobbled together from short clips filmed with stop and start filming techniques (it films when your thumb is on the screen, stops when you take it off, and resumes again when you put your thumb back on the screen). Let’s take a look at how Instagram video has changed the game.
Length
The debate over fifteen seconds vs six seconds is something that warrants its own blog post, and we will certainly see scientific research about the merits of fifteen versus six emerge in the coming weeks. For now we’ll examine this debate without access to a database of statistics or advanced analytics. One main point that has been raised is that a whopping fifteen seconds may simply be superfluous. After all, it was the tight six second window provided by Vine that spurred creativity. With tighter time constraints, users were forced to make every second count. But maybe the casual Instagrammer that isn’t as artistically motivated finds the six second window of Vine frustrating and constricting, which returns the upper hand to the fifteen seconds. This will certainly be an interesting saga to watch unfold.
Non-Looping
Another huge distinguishing factor between Instagram video and Vine. Where as the Vine videos play over and over again until they are no longer on your screen, Instagram videos will play exclusively when you want them to. While some prefer Instagram video’s non-looping ability because of the control it gives them, Vine’s looping ability gives its videos a GIF-like quality, adding an extra addicting dimension of appeal and aiding the creation of creative videos like the ones these guys made.
Filters
What would Instagram videos be without Instagram’s signature filters? These filters work the same way as the ones provided for the pictures, except they have cooler names like “Stinson,” “Dogpatch,” and “Ashby.” Simply take a video of a very mundane event, such as you cooking yourself eggs in the morning, add your best friend, the dogpatch filter, and voila. Art.
Cover Frame
Unlike Vine, Instagram videos allows you to choose the frame that users see prior to playing your video, giving users more control over how they want to entice users to watch their videos. After all, what is Instagram without beautiful still images?
Focus
You may have been wondering why Instagram video doesn’t employ the same tap-anywhere-on-the-screen-to-film strategy as Vine. Why not Instagram?! It’s so much cleaner!! Well the reason is because Instagram video allows users to focus on specific objects in the frame, just like how you would when taking a picture, while recording your video. For those wanting to get creative with video, that means the ability to go from the background, to the foreground, to the background, to the foreground..as many times as you can in fifteen seconds. Have a blast.
Editing
Instagram video gives users the power to go through their video after recording it and deleting specific frames that are not up to their standards. As opposed to Vine, which forces users to post raw footage or simply start over in the event of mistakes, Instagram allows users to micromanage their footage in order to create their desired product.
Well that pretty much covers all of the differences between these two video sharing platforms. And it will undoubtedly be an interesting battle to watch.
-Eric
