Instagram tests 90-minute horizontal videos for long-form content creators

Instagram is also experimenting with “Series”, a feature that gives episodic Reels a dedicated space on a creator’s profile (Photo: AP).

Instagram on Monday began testing new features, including 90-minute horizontal videos to target long-form content creators like podcasters and comedians, with select creators in the US.The feature, called “Features”, will allow them to link short reel clips, typically around three minutes or less, to full-length videos, as per The Hollywood Reporter.“What you’re now going to be able to do is, you see a clip of a podcast that you love, you can just click and continue watching or watch the full video, and you’ll be able to dive in and see the whole thing because creators are going to be able to link these Reels to their overall feature,” vice-president of product at Instagram, Tessa Lyons, said.Instagram has already been testing Features with creators in Brazil and plans to expand the trial to tens of thousands of creators in the US. The videos will reportedly be recommended to users through the Explore page and other areas of the platform.The feature will be available on mobile, with Instagram aiming to extend the viewing experience to its TV app. Instagram for TV, which launched last year and is available on Samsung, Fire TV and Google TV, is now expanding to Apple TV in the US.

“We think the best viewing experience for longform horizontal content is on a big, horizontal screen, and so I think that is where we will expect a lot of the deep consumption to happen over time,” Lyons said, as per The Hollywood Reporter.Instagram is also experimenting with “Series”, a feature that gives episodic Reels a dedicated space on a creator’s profile. The move comes amid growing interest in microdramas and episodic videos among creators.In June, the company began reaching out to microdrama studios in Southeast Asia to test the feature. It has since approached individual creators who have been experimenting with episodic content.Instagram plans to begin testing Series in more countries in the coming months, with a US launch targeted for the end of this year or early next year. The company has also started testing how the feature will appear on television.Other experiments include integrating live videos into the Reels tab and recommending them to users who do not follow the creators. The test is launching in Indonesia and Brazil, with an expansion to the US planned for next year.