Does Instagram Video signal the death of Vine? Industry reactions from 1000heads, TH_NK and Mindshare

Freddie Young, community director, 1000heads

Will Instagram Video replace Vine? We doubt it, but most brands will need to decide on one or the other to rationalise their social presences. Whether brands use Vine or Instagram going forward will depend on their objectives, current plans, and audience. Vine has already grasped the interest of a very active creative community whereas Instagram appeals to the mainstream and benefits from a massive user base. We expect to see brands who use Twitter as their priority social platform focusing on Vine and those who focus on Facebook, prioritising Instagram Video. This is not the end of Vine: both platforms will co-exist, just as their owners do.

Lea Simpson, strategy partner, TH_NK

Our industry has a propensity for drama. Frankly, there is nothing to see here people. Vine will be fine – and not just because that rhymes. Let’s weigh it up. Vine has an early starter advantage, but requires a separate app. In fact, the distance between Twitter and Vine feels quite intentional and perpetual. Instagram video is native to the app and therefore has an impressive user base already, but they have Facebook's IP ownership issues as quite significant baggage. My hunch is that the pros and cons for both services will even out and nobody will win anything. But really it’s because there’s nothing to win. At my last count there were over a thousand photography apps in the Apple app store alone. One doesn't put the other out of business. Our propensity for drama often means we don’t ask the right question. Contemplating the death of Vine isn’t the right question for us. Instead, we should be asking questions about what this emerging form of content creations means for news and culture. What business models it could spawn. And why now is a good time for it, when services like 12second.tv were too early for their own good. That’s when this starts to feel exciting, way more exciting than boring old death.

Nick Reid, UK MD, TubeMogul

Instagram won’t kill off vine, but video is evolving across the web and this move will help convince brands even more of the reach, scale and influence that online video provides across all platforms.Muted, six-second videos on Vine and now 15 second video clips on Instagram hold a lot more branding potential than simple text or static images. We can see brands taking advantage of the new format on their Facebook pages to engage with a wholly different audience than those they engage with on Twitter. The 30-second or longer video ad format is already available to marketers, so brands will have to differentiate themselves to effectively translate to the massive, fast reach of Facebook's audience. The branding promise of online video in growing at an increasing pace. If we can communicate to an audience in six ot fifteen seconds, the marketing potential is massive and will respectively change how we reach consumers within other mediums to audiences who demand on the spot content.

Jed Hallam, head of social strategy, Mindshare UK

Facebook’s launch of video for Instagram is along with the launch of hashtags for Facebook a clear signal that it’s trying to compete directly with Twitter. Video content is, by and large, one of the most engaging and most shared forms of media online, and Facebook will know that by introducing this into an already devoted userbase, it can be a much bigger part of that – especially through mobile. However, the statistics and user behaviour around Vine already put it at a good standing – earlier this month (5 June) more Vines were shared on Twitter than Instagram photos – but that doesn’t mean either will ‘win’. It will be interesting to see the impact of the rumoured new features that Vine is soon to introduce on user behaviour. I suppose one thing that we know to be true is that Twitter launched Vine as a closely integrated video platform for Twitter, while Facebook purchased Instagram and has been slowly trying to reverse engineer features back into its parent platform – so the way in which these integrations occur and how users respond will hold the key to which will become the more dominant platform.

Jeremy Arditi, MD, Ebuzzing

Both Vine and Instagram face challenges if they want to become the video app of choice. For Vine to succeed and thrive it will need to maintain their high level of service, they are known for being good at updating their app, having quickly rolled out an Android version. It’s crucial they keep this level of flexibility and agility to compete with Instagram, possibly introducing some more Instagram like features such as the ability to delete the last shot or add filters to your films. Instagram, on the other hand, faces the challenge of growing its follower base and converting their existing followers to video if they are to take on Vine.

Alice Driscoll, MD at pd3

Instagram’s video feature opens up new possibilities for social media and specifically for visual content sharing online. With Facebook’s seemingly limitless resources and Instagram’s reputation for great visual content, moving into film was an anticipated next step. We expect Vine to fight back and come out with new features in the upcoming weeks as it attempts to strike back against Instagram’s potential checkmate move. Whatever move is made, we know ultimately who will win this game. It’s us, the industry, as competition will continue to be the biggest driver in technological innovation.“