Menlo Park, California — Look out Vine: Instagram isn’t just about sharing arty photos anymore.
On Thursday, the company announced its 130 million monthly users will now be able to shoot and share 15-second videos, dressed up with one of 13 special filters.
The new video feature was made available to all iOS and Android Instagram users around the world Thursday as a free update to the existing Instagram app. The basic look of the app is the same, but a small movie icon has been added that takes you into video mode.
The changes were announced by Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom during a press event at the headquarters of Facebook, which bought Instagram last year.
“It’s everything we know and love about Instagram, but it moves,” Systrom said.
The video-sharing feature was widely expected and puts Instagram in direct competition with Vine, the popular Twitter-owned app that lets users share looping six-second video clips. Vine has skyrocketed in popularity in the six months since it launched, attracting more than 13 million users. Many of the six-second videos have a unique look and feel, employing fast cuts and stop-motion animations to tell quirky little stories.
Read more at CNN