Instagram to get Live Video feature soon, confirmed by the CEO

Previously we had reported about the live video feature coming to Instagram as it was being tested in many places. Now we have an official confirmation from the CEO of the company, Kevin Systrom. The CEO discussed the company’s live video ambitions in an interview with the Financial Times. Well, that was quick since we earlier reported about the feature just a couple of weeks back. However, he didn’t give much info on this and hence we are not sure exactly how it is going to be implemented.

Kevin Systrom quoted that “Live is really exciting for us, I think it can enhance what we’re doing. If I’m trying to strengthen relationships with someone I love, them streaming video to me live would be an amazing way to be closer to them.” As mentioned earlier, we are not sure as to how this feature will be made available to users, but judging by the previous rumours, we are expecting the feature to be baked right into the stories feature.

Well, if you don’t know what stories are, it is basically a Snapchat clone feature where you can take a photo or record a video and share it with your followers and it will stay there for 24 hours before it disappears. If the live video feature is baked into the stories option, then it would be as simple as tapping an option and going live for your followers to see. It would be interesting to see how this feature will be received by the people.

But considering the fact that most of the social media platforms and video sharing platforms already have this feature, it makes Instagram to also get into the race. And as far as the usability is concerned, the Instagram stories was well received in the market, although there was a lot of criticism initially claiming that Instagram copied Snapchat. And according to Facebook, users watch more live-videos than the non-live videos. This could be mainly due to the fact that users wants to know what the people that they follow or dear to them are doing at any given point of time.

Considering all that, it will be no surprise that Instagram whose parent company being Facebook will also rollout this feature quite soon. It will definitely grow it’s reach even further. And as mentioned previously, these video feeds could show up on top of the main screen where the live feeds will be indicated by red. Currently, Instagram has over 500 million active users and this will definitely give them a boost and also the existing users will love this new feature. As of now we have no info on the official rollout of this feature worldwide, but we should be seeing this new feature quite soon since it is already being tested in many places.