Instagram’s vertical video days are finally over

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Instagram
Goodbye annoying vertical videos.
Photo: Instagram

Instagram is finally giving up on its mission to make vertical videos the most popular format viewed on phones.

The company revealed today that it will now support landscape video on IGTV, its long form video app that is also baked into the main Instagram app.

IGTV’s move away from only supporting vertical videos gives content creators the option to port their YouTube videos over without having to flip it sideways or crop out the sides to make it vertical. This is a huge concession from Instagram that horizontal video is what most people want.

“We realize this is an evolution from where IGTV started — we believe it’s the right change for viewers and creators,” the company says in a blog post. “In many ways, opening IGTV to more than just vertical videos is similar to when we opened Instagram to more than just square photos in 2015. It enabled creativity to flourish and engagement to rise — and we believe the same will happen again with IGTV.”

When IGTV launched nearly a year ago, vertical video was its main feature. Now it’s hard to see what will make the platform standout, other than being a place to promote your long YouTube videos to your Instagram followers. IGTV doesn’t have a built-in ad platform so that content creators can make money and brands still aren’t paying creators to make videos specifically for IGTV.

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