Instagram rolling out live video

Instagram is rolling out live video in its photo app, and hopes to lure users away from traditionally televised events.

“Live is really exciting for us. I think it can enhance what we’re doing,” Kevin Systrom CEO of Instagram said.  “ To strengthen relationships with someone I love,  those streaming video to me live would be an amazing way to be closer to them.”

Instagram joins live video with opponents like YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram’s parent company Facebook.

Mark Zukerberg, Facebook chief executive said the company was prioritising video “across our family of apps” as Facebook is testing making video more central to the news feed, Facebook Messenger is testing new camera and video features  People are creating and sharing more video and we think it’s pretty clear that video is only going to become more important.”

Viewings of live video on YouTube leapt 80 per cent in the last year, Snapchat and Twitter had 49m unique visitors watching live Olympics content in the first week of Rio 2016. Snapchat’s story feature, where collections of photos last just 24 hours and their tactic seems to be working – stories hit 100m daily users some two months after launch “ All of a sudden 100m people using  the new format is not something you ignore. You just push investment into it “ Mr Systrom said.