It
turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t
in the square format,’ admits Facebook subsidiary, with eye on video ads
Instagram built its community of 300 million users
around a simple rule: every photo or video that they shared using its
app would be square. Now the Facebook subsidiary is ditching that
policy.
The app’s latest update introduces portrait and landscape options for
both photos and videos, in a move that may be aimed at encouraging more
brands to run video advertisements on Instagram.
The company is positioning the change as more about its users,
unsurprisingly. “Square format has been and always will be part of who
we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always
come first,” explained its blog post announcing the news.
“It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post
aren’t in the square format, and we know that it hasn’t been easy to
share this type of content on Instagram: friends get cut out of group
shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the
Golden Gate Bridge from end to end.”
The company added that it was “especially excited about what this
update means for video on Instagram, which in widescreen can be more
cinematic than ever”. Not to mention less of a pain for advertisers to
reformat ads originally shot for television.
Instagram added the ability to upload 15-second videos to its app in June 2013, with many brands having since used the feature from their official accounts. The first video advertisements appeared in October 2014.
A Vanity Fair profile of Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom in 2013 traced the decision back to his student days on a photography course:
influenced the software of the devices they were installed on. Apple,
for example, added a square shooting mode to the iOS camera app in 2013,
as part of its iOS 7 update.
around a simple rule: every photo or video that they shared using its
app would be square. Now the Facebook subsidiary is ditching that
policy.
The app’s latest update introduces portrait and landscape options for
both photos and videos, in a move that may be aimed at encouraging more
brands to run video advertisements on Instagram.
The company is positioning the change as more about its users,
unsurprisingly. “Square format has been and always will be part of who
we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always
come first,” explained its blog post announcing the news.
“It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post
aren’t in the square format, and we know that it hasn’t been easy to
share this type of content on Instagram: friends get cut out of group
shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the
Golden Gate Bridge from end to end.”
The company added that it was “especially excited about what this
update means for video on Instagram, which in widescreen can be more
cinematic than ever”. Not to mention less of a pain for advertisers to
reformat ads originally shot for television.
Instagram added the ability to upload 15-second videos to its app in June 2013, with many brands having since used the feature from their official accounts. The first video advertisements appeared in October 2014.
A Vanity Fair profile of Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom in 2013 traced the decision back to his student days on a photography course:
A Business Insider interview in 2012, as Facebook bought his startup for $1bn, saw Systrom describing the discussions that led to the square format on Instagram:“At Stanford, Systrom opted to go abroad to Florence, Italy, for the
winter term of his junior year, where he focused on photography. A
teacher there persuaded him to switch from his Nikon to a plastic Holga
that took square photos, a choice that would be echoed later at
Instagram. Florence also marked Systrom’s introduction to using
chemicals in the developing process, such as selenium toning, which can
give photos a distinct purple hue.”
Instagram and other photography apps using the square format“We realised that if we were going to do photos, that we’d have to be
different and stand out. Square photos displayed really well in a feed
format and frankly we just liked the aspect ratio better. It wasn’t much
more complex than that.”
influenced the software of the devices they were installed on. Apple,
for example, added a square shooting mode to the iOS camera app in 2013,
as part of its iOS 7 update.
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