Last week, Instagram introduced short video sharing features for its popular photo service, in direct answer to Twitter’s own Vine service. Do you use any of them?
Despite YouTube being around for nearly a decade, new forms of sharing video have been popping up all over lately. Most of them are bite-sized and come with very simple editing tools. For example, Vine and Instagram both have the ability to only record as long as you’re pressing the red button, which allows for very simple editing. Combined with specialised communities or tight integration with social services, they offer a compelling package.
Is it enough to make you use them though? Do you prefer a service with a smaller reach if it has a better interface? Do Instagram and Vine have a different purpose than YouTube? Or do you just prefer to turn the camera off entirely anyway? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Comments
5 responses to “Do You Use Social Video Sharing Services Like Instagram Or Vine?”
Nope I don’t use it and actually find myself skipping past them on Instagram. I love Instagram and use it a lot but the video side of it doesn’t interest me the least.
I started with Vine recently and before I could make my 2nd video (1st attempt – https://vine.co/v/hBeUwhMmdma) Instagram rolled the video option out. To be honest, I LOVE it! There is so much of creative stuff that you can actually get to do with this app. But here is my concern… the application cache in my phone has just been increasing at an exploding rate. I would strongly recommend Instagram/Vine to come out with duration based ‘auto clear cache’ asap. I’m sure most users are oblivious to this fact.
Check out my app cache after watching 10 videos on Instagram:
http://i43.tinypic.com/eu3u51.png
Nope. From what I’ve seen, these videos generally suck. Too many people trying too hard to make something out of nothing.
I use Vine. Keek is okay as well. Video option in Instagram is of no interest to me
Just as it requires some skill to take a decent photo that’s worth more than a passing glance, so it takes skill to shoot decent video. The shorter the video, the more skill/judgement/creativity required.
Some video pros are doing interesting things in the micro-format, but most of what you see on Vine/Instagram etc. is not worth 6 or 15 seconds of your time. (At least you can sum up a dull or inept photo in less than a second and scroll right past.) So I’ve disabled autoplay in Instagram and I ignore the videos.
Incidentally, 15 seconds matches the duration of existing video commercials. No coincidence there.
What really interests me are cinemagraphs as popularised by fashion photographer Jamie Beck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinemagraph
Some of these are very beautiful and clever, and I’ve been motivated to try my hand at making them myself. The app for these is called Cinemagram. (Sadly, the Cinemagram feed also has a lot of garden-variety short videos – not even attempting to create that intriguing blend of still photo and moving image – but there are some users worth following.)