Instagram Removed IGTV Button from App Home Screen Due to Low Uses
Instagram, as you know, one of the most popular social media sites, which has over 1 billion monthly active users. After getting acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has gone through lots of changes. In the last eight odd years, Instagram has added many features as well as removed lots of it to make its platform useful for everyone using. In an effort to make Instagram a preferred platform for content creators, Instagram had introduced IGTV (short for Instagram TV). Before IGTV, users could only share videos shorter than 1 minute. With IGTV, Instagram hoped to attract content creators to create videos for the Instagram audience. The feature was in direct competition with YouTube. At first, it had generated some traction as many content creators rushed to create their own IGTV channel and posted many videos. Initially, there was a dedicated app (the app is still available to download) to access all IGTV contents. Then Instagram integrated IGTV to the Instagram app to generate more eyeballs.
Since then, there had been a big IGTV button on the top-right side of the Instagram app. With IGTV, Instagram had hoped to create a new platform for content creators by allowing them to create vertical videos. But with the introduction of TikTok, the dream of Instagram to become a platform for content creators has died slowly. That is the reason why Instagram has finally removed the big IGTV from the Instagram app home screen. Make no mistake; users can still access IGTV contents through the dedicated app and Instagram feed. The only thing changed here is the big (and ugly to be honest) IGTV button, which was sitting on the top right corner of the Instagram app home screen that no one was using. I am sure you wouldn’t have noticed the absence of the button had you not read this article.
In a statement to TechCrunch – the first to notice and report about this missing IGTV button – Facebook said the following:
“As we’ve continued to work on making it easier for people to create and discover IGTV content, we’ve learned that most people are finding IGTV content through previews in Feed, the IGTV channel in Explore, creators’ profiles and the standalone app. Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon in the top right corner of the home screen in the Instagram app…. We always aim to keep Instagram as simple as possible, so we’re removing this icon based on these learnings and feedback from our community.”
I will give it to Facebook that they didn’t shy away from accepting that the IGTV didn’t perform as well as they had hoped for. In my opinion, it is a good decision by Instagram to remove the app button from the app. Cause everyone knows this, only a handful of users of 1 billion Instagram users use the IGTV feature. So removing it makes a lot of sense. And also, with the introduction of TikTok, it is evident that short videos can also perform well. Instagram just needs to find a different approach to attract users to use Instagram to create and share videos.
What do you think of this move by Instagram? Have you used the Instagram IGTV button even once in the last few weeks? I don’t think I have. Anyway, I am interested to hear your thoughts and opinion on this matter.
