Instagram users have embraced the application's just-released video feature by uploading 5 million videos in the first 24 hours of the feature's availability, a company representative told CNET.
Thursday, Facebook-owned Instagram added video to its iOS and Android applications, enabling users to capture moments in a new way by shooting and sharing up to 15 seconds of video, with effects-filters available and footage stabilized during the uploading process. The feature, which bears a resemblance to Twitter's Vine application, seems to be an early hit with Instagram's 130 million active users, who, in the first eight hours, uploaded so many videos that it would take a year to watch them all.
At peak, Instagram users uploaded 40 hours of video per minute. The climactic moment came Thursday night as the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs during the NBA Finals, the representative said.
The initial numbers suggest that Instagram can bring video sharing to the masses, which historically has proved a difficult task for other app makers.
Not everyone is enamored with Instagram's newest dimension. Apple pundit and widely followed technology blogger John Gruber said that video makes Instagram worse. He criticized video on Instagram for being slow to load and ruining the service's simplicity and focus. "Thankfully there's a setting to turn off 'Auto-Play Videos'; otherwise I'd abandon ship," he said.
