Instagram has started testing horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes with select creators in the United States, a significant change for a platform that built its video business on short vertical clips, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Meta-owned platform announced the test on Monday under a new format called Features. It is designed mainly for podcasters, comedians, and other creators who publish interviews, full episodes, or longer shows, and the videos will first be available on Instagram’s mobile app. Instagram has also been testing the format for television viewing, in line with its aim of getting users to watch podcasts and other longer videos on larger screens.
The move is widely seen as an attempt to challenge YouTube, which dominates long-form online video and is a major home for podcasts. Features is also meant to work alongside Reels, since creators can link a short clip to the longer horizontal video behind it, so a viral Reel can lead viewers to a full episode. Instagram is gradually expanding tests of episodic content formats as well, which would let creators organise serialised videos neatly on their profiles. The company had already tried the format in Brazil before widening the test to selected US creators, according to MediaPost, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta’s Lyons explained the thinking behind Features in a video about the product.
Instagram has tried longer videos before. It launched IGTV in 2018 as a home for long-form vertical video and discontinued it in 2022, after the format failed to catch on, so the new test is a return to an idea that did not succeed the first time. The main difference is the horizontal orientation, which suits podcasts and filmed conversations and matches how people watch on television. Another difference that creators are likely to notice is the money. Variety reported that, unlike YouTube, Instagram is not sharing advertising revenue from these videos at this stage, which means creators would rely on audience growth, brand deals, and other income from the platform and not on a direct revenue split.
For now the test is limited to a small group of creators in the US, and Instagram has not given a timetable for when creators in other countries, including those in Pakistan and the wider region, will be able to upload 90-minute videos. How well Features performs will depend on whether audiences who use Instagram for short clips are willing to sit through a long episode, and whether enough podcasters and comedians are ready to publish full-length shows on a platform that has not yet offered the monetisation or discovery tools they get from YouTube. Instagram has not said how many creators are part of the test, how long it will run, or what changes it might make before a wider launch.
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