Instagram, the Facebook-owned image and video sharing service can now play videos continuously with no chance of being paused in the middle of its playing. Referred to as "auto-looping," the new feature is akin to the way Twitter-owned Vine would automatically replay its own videos. However, users can still pause their Instagram videos when these are played on the web.
The new feature would allow videos that are shared through the app to loop continuously. This means that they would start playing again from the very beginning once they reach the end. It also means that once they start playing, there is no way that they can be paused. Users would simply have to scroll past them if they feel like they've already viewed enough. In order to view them again, users would have to scroll back to it.
Instagram launched its 15-second videos feature 18 months ago. Though it has added an impressive hyperlapse video app that could encourage an increased playing of clips, its video ecosystem still needs some catching up. Instagram is still very popular among users because of its photo-sharing feature.
The idea of allowing the clips to keep playing over and over is just one of Instagram's ways to make the users aware of its capability to explore another horizon. Moreover, it also seemed as a boon for advertisers since they can be assured that their videos will undoubtedly be seen by the 300 million monthly users of Instagram.
Another advantage of the new feature is that it opens a community potential for the loop-featured music and comedy videos. Moreover, the added loop feature would provide a metric that can be used to determine the exposure rate of ad spots and videos.
The latest change also makes Instagram's video service a step closer to the service offered by rival Vine. The difference lies in the fact that Vine's six-second videos are usually designed to be looped while Instagram's 15-second clips are not.
Users who want to make sure that playing the videos do not eat up mobile data should have the videos preloaded through a Wi-Fi connection. They have to remember that this is not an option that is offered on default and that they could feel frustrated when disabling the video's autoplay is not possible from the very beginning.
