TechCrunch is reporting that Instagram and Facebook are planning to start letting users take and share short videos from within the Instagram app. The feature would mimic the functionality of Vine, the embattled video creation app that launched a few months ago.
Matthew Keys reported a few weeks ago that Facebook was testing such a service for Instagram, according to sources who asked not to be named. Testing has apparently been sufficiently successful, and the two companies plan to unveil the new offering at a June 20 event in Menlo Park, CA.
Vine rocked the app ecosystem when it launched at the end of January, giving users an easy way to record and share videos of up to six seconds long. The app debuted under the aegis of Twitter, which bought the service back in October.
Vine initially had some problems with porn sharing, but the service has continued to grow. Recently, it launched an Android app, and reports last week indicated that shares of Vines on Twitter have surpassed those of Instagrams. This may have something to do with the fact that Instagram photos are blocked from being displayed inline on Twitter, which is not the case for Vine videos.
While we’ve seen little more than nominal use of Vine in our day-to-day Internet trawlings, maybe an affiliation with Facebook will bring micro-videos into wider use. That said, we’d hate to see our Instagram feeds cluttered with moving images.
