It’s been just over a week since Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Instagram added a video feature. But the additional video tool is already taking a toll on its biggest rival Vine. Instagram launched its 15-second video tool on June 20, and Twitter shares through Vine have witnessed a decline since the same day, shows Topsy Analytics.
Instagram Hurts Vine Badly
Twitter brought its 6-second video sharing platform Vine in January 2013. Vine has enjoyed enormous popularity since its launch. But a day after Instagram launched video, the number of links on social networks to Vine videos plunged by about half a million. Links to Instagram videos on Twitter peaked to 1.83 million on June 20. Since then, Instagram has averaged 1.4 million to 1.5 million Twitter shares per day.
Sharing of Vine videos on Twitter fell from 3 million on June 15 to 1.88 million on June 20. Vine dropped further to 935,109 Twitter shares on June 27. Topsy said the figures include links and retweets, but not spam. In fact, Instagram saw an addition of 5 million new videos to the site within just 24 hours of launching the video service. When the Miami Heat won the NBA championship, more than 40 hours of videos were being uploaded per minute on Instagram, reports Stephanie Mlot of PCMagazine.
Vine Continues To Improve
However, Vine hasn’t given up. On Thursday, Vine upgraded its Android app with a number of improvements including support for a front-facing camera. The latest version has a new upload manager, better speed, faster camera loading time, user interface improvements and bug fixes.
Analysts believe that Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has a pretty good opportunity to monetize Instagram’s video tool, which has opened the door for video advertising for the company. Instagram has over 130 million users, and monetization of the tool will further boost revenues for the social networking giant.
Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) shares were up 0.32 percent to $24.74 at 12:58 PM EDT.
