Instagram hits 1 billion users; launches new IGTV video uploading service

Instagram has recently revealed that it now has a billion active users on a monthly basis. About nine months ago, the social media platform had announced that it had reached 800 million monthly active users, improving upon the 500 million active user volume it had amassed every month as of June of 2016.

Instagram is continuing to generate some momentum lately, while some its rivals, notably Facebook (who owns the Instagram brand) and Snapchat, have been displaying some slow growth. Indeed, during the first three months of this year, Facebook saw its monthly active user volume increase only 3.14 percent, while Snapchat managed a somewhat unimpressive 2.13 percent growth. Instagram, on the other hand, is posting a quarterly growth of nearly 5 percent.

While it is true that Facebook is not fond of making Instagram’s earnings public, eMarketer is projecting that Instagram will earn around $5.48 billion in advertising revenues in the United States alone this year. That figure represents a mind blowing 70 percent improvement as compared to 2017’s showing. eMarketer has further pointed out that Instagram is capturing 28.2 percent of the total advertising earnings registered by Facebook.

Sure, Facebook is still widely considered the biggest social media platform in the world. But there is increasing talk that Facebook’s popularity is starting to decline. Nearly three weeks ago, Pew Research Center had released the results of a study it recently conducted, and it suggested that members of the younger generation (especially teenage kids) are no longer that keen in using or hanging out in Facebook.

But perhaps Facebook can still rejoice in the fact that when all is said and done, Instagram is its property. And Instagram is about to get better -- the brand has just announced that it will be launching its IGTV platform. Basically what this new service does is let creators and Instagram users upload videos up to one hour in length.

It goes without saying that the launch of IGTV is quite significant. Before, Instagram users could only upload videos up to one minute in length. By allowing long videos to be uploaded by its users, Instagram is essentially saying to the rest of the world that it is now ready to give Google’s YouTube a run for its money.

Furthermore, Instagram’s new IGTV feature is not only accessible by way of a button inside the Instagram home screen, it is also made available as a standalone mobile app. It is no secret that Instagram already has its own army of celebrities -- with IGTV, the most followed accounts not get a chance to attract more followers, while those aspiring to become Instagram celebs themselves now have the ability to upload longer and more viral worthy videos.