Instagram is testing features aimed at capturing a bigger part of the entertainment landscape, including the ability to play long-form videos like podcasts and more on the platform.
Starting Monday, Instagram will be launching a test of horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes with select creators in the U.S. The product, called Features, is aimed at podcasters, comedians and other long-form creators, with the ability to refer viewers to the full video from the short-form reels on the platform, which are typically around three minutes or less.
“What you’re now going to be able to do is, you see a clip of a podcast that you love, you can just click and continue watching or watch the full video, and you’ll be able to dive in and see the whole thing because creators are going to be able to link these Reels to their overall feature,” said Tessa Lyons, vice president of product at Instagram.
Instagram has already been testing the feature with creators in Brazil and has a plan of expanding to tens of thousands of creators in the U.S. The videos will also be recommended to users on Instagram’s Explore page and in other areas. Early creators involved in the test include podcast host and Skims co-founder Emma Grede, beauty and fashion creator Monet McMichael, Preston Rakovsky, who interviews New Yorkers about love and relationships and football content creator Donald De La Haye.
This comes as Netflix, Disney and more have been adding podcasts and videos from creators to their platforms, in an effort to capture more consumer viewing hours, and compete with entertainment behemoth YouTube. One challenge for Instagram and others, in the battle against YouTube, has been competing against the platform’s lucrative revenue sharing deals, with YouTube offering qualified creators offered 55 percent of ad revenue and helping generate brand deals.
Lyons said Instagram is currently working on “a few different deals” with the early creators for Features, but there’s currently no exclusivity around putting the videos on Instagram (unlike Netflix’s deals for podcasts). Additionally, existing ad deals will carry over into the videos, but Instagram will also work with creators without existing placements to find deals.
“For established creators who already have those relationships, they can bring that content with those placements and that branded content. And we also think that there’s a big opportunity for us to help creators who don’t yet have that infrastructure and that business behind them,” Lyons said.
Features will be available on mobile, but the goal is to carry the viewing experience over to Instagram for TV, which launched last year with Samsung, Fire TV, Google TV and is now expanding to Apple TV in the U.S. as part of Instagram’s move for more of the entertainment landscape.
“We think the best viewing experience for long-form horizontal content is on a big horizontal screen, and so I think that that is where we will expect a lot of the deep consumption to happen over time,” Lyons said.
Additionally, given the rise of microdramas, as well as a desire among creators for episodic videos, Instagram has been experimenting with Series, which provides a home for episodic Reels on a creator’s profile. In June, the company began reaching out to microdrama studios in Southeast Asia to experiment with the feature, and has since been reaching out to individual creators, who have been experimenting with their own episodic content.
In the coming months, Instagram plans to begin testing the feature in more countries and bring it to the U.S. by the end of year or early next year. The company has also begun testing how it will appear on the TV.
These join other new features Instagram has been testing out, including integrating live video into the Reels tab and showing live videos to audience who don’t follow the users. This is launching in Indonesia and Brazil with plans to expand it to the U.S. next year.