Social-Media
Instagrams lead says he is not satisfied with Reels yet and may consolidate content formats.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, is not thrilled by TikTok's network competitor Reels. In an interview with The Verge's Decoder Podcast today, he addressed the format that was introduced in the US in August.
I'm not happy with it yet, he says. We're growing both in terms of how much people share and how much we ingest, but we have a long way to go. And we have to be honest with you the TikTok is ahead.
He went on to say that the team is more focused on "table stakes" right now, and not on how to distinguish itself.
Specifically, he's pointing out TikTok's groundbreaking artistic methods, such as filters and effects that stimulate new video meme formats as something that Instagram doesn't do on its own yet but needs to do eventually.
I think we're going to have to do better to build more powerful and creative tools that aren't necessarily a meme or a kind of moment in a package, but give people who are more creative than us and make a living content the ability to make something that's going to pop, he says.
Instagram also sees a tension between the several different video formats. Mosseri claims "most people" actually don't know the difference between Instagram and IGTV posts, the longer video app style that has existed since 2018.
That's probably too nuanced a distinction to resonate with anyone, so we're looking at how we can—not just with IGTV, but across all of Instagram—simplify and consolidate ideas, because we made a lot of new bets last year, he says. I think we need to get back to our focus on simplicity and craft this year.
This is a somewhat different sound from when Instagram introduced the format and called it the "future of video." But it points to TikTok's exponential growth, which was not fully established in popular culture in 2018, but is now a force of discourse, memes and viral dances. Mosseri points out that IGTV and Reels, as well as general videos shared on the Instagram grid, require some kind of consolidation and consistency, which makes sense, particularly when the app is attempting to do all at once.
