It’s gidday from Instagram as it unveils its newly launched app Boomerang.
The new, stand-alone app allows users to create low effort, mini videos of moments that play forward and backward, providing a GIF-like feel. Although Instagram is trying to steer us away from viewing the content format in the same light, suggesting “a boomerang” provides something a bit more “special and unexpected”.
In this new format, Instagram is encouraging users to capture a moment and let it come alive again and again on loop. Instagram want you to “transform an ordinary selfie with your friends into a funny video. Get that exact moment your friend blows out his birthday candles, then watch them come back to life again and again”. The experimental videos will be enabled for direct upload to Instagram and Facebook via the Boomerang app but the videos will also be saved to your own camera roll.
In today’s digital age, Instagram, one of the fastest growing social media networks of all time, knows only too well its need to compete with other social media platforms in bringing users new ways in which to publish content. Providing users with new ways of portraying and publishing their lives more creatively is one of the challenges given to all of the big players in social today.
Boomerang’s attempt to facilitate fun, mini moments will no doubt be a hit with users due to the minimal effort required from users to capture a moment in time. The only possible downside being that the functionality of Boomerang video comes from a separate app rather than living in the current Instagram app itself. Maybe something Instagram will merge over time.
To see how the app works, you can watch Instagram video on it in the blog post.
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