A lot has happened since Facebook-owned Instagram launched its own short-form video support yesterday, and not just to the formerly photo-only social network. Rival Vine also got Android users feeling fine with some updates to its own app earlier today.
Let's look at the numbers first, shall we?
According to an Instagram blog post and press release, Video on Instagram saw 5 million uploads in the first 24 hours. So much video was thrown up in the first 8 hours, it would take a year to watch all of it. We're not willing to test that assertion, so we'll have to take the Grammer's word for it.
Celebrities and brands jumped in the clip-filled fray, with the likes of Kobe Bryant, Jimmy Fallon, Brody/Kendall/Kylie Jenner and brands from ESPN to TopShop creating moving pictures. Many shouted out the new service, though there were a fair number of puppy playtime posts.
Meanwhile, on Vine...
While it could be chalked up to first day excitement, Video on Instagram is looking like a success so far. We'll see how use fairs as time goes on, but Kevin Systrom and Friends are probably heading into the weekend with a smile stitched on their faces.
Vine, king of the 6-second video loop, may get the week's last laugh, however, as it announced a few updates rolling out with Android version 1.1.0 just as Friday was fading away.
"Vine for Android update is now in Google Play - includes search, hashtags and mentions, sharing to Facebook & more," a tweet from @vineapp informed.
There's also user search, improved capture speed, quality and audio/video synchronization and a few other bug fixes and UI improvements.
Vine on iOS snatched 13 million users between January and June, and the app just launched on Android earlier this month. These updates should help the quick-clip service gain some followers and keep current ones as the general consensus is that Vine on Android is pretty rotten.
