It didn’t take long for Instagram’s new video-sharing feature to catch on: Within its first 24 hours, 5 million videos were uploaded onto the site.
Video on Instagram launched Thursday during a press event at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. It allows for 15-second video clips, which can be transformed using 13 custom filters, and made more professional with the Cinema feature’s image stabilization.
“We’re excited to see what the community will bring to video, whether it’s your local café showing you just how they made your latte art this morning or an Instagrammer on the other side of the world taking you on a tour of their city, a mother sharing her joys in parenting as her children laugh and play or your favorite athlete taking you behind the scenes,” Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post.
Kobe Bryant isn’t the only celebrity sharing his life through filtered video, though. Instagram recently touted the work of pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, Snoop Dogg, Madonna, fashion model Karlie Kloss, chef Jamie Oliver, and a handful of others who are engaging with fans via videos.
Even brands like Cisco, eBay, and GE have joined the fray.
In fact, Instagram reported a peak of 40 hours of video uploaded per minute this weekend, when the Miami Heat won the NBA championship.
Not surprisingly, Instagram’s latest Weekend Hashtag Project theme was “moving photos,” which charged users with “capturing video of a scene they would normally photograph.” The company highlighted some of its favorite ventures, including Mooney the Cat’s movie debut and an afternoon reading session.
Within the first eight hours since the iOS and Android app updates rolled out last week, Instagram captured one year’s worth of videos — that is, it would literally take 365 days to watch all of the earliest videos back-to-back.
The application already carries 130 million monthly users, who “like” approximately 1 billion photos every day.