Instagram's New Data Hog: Video

Facebook just added video to Instagram on Thursday, but the impact has been immediate -- 5 million videos, some pointless, some funny, some marketing-driven, took over the social network on Day One, flooding operator networks along with them. Mobile video optimization vendor Avvasi observed that the total number of video sessions on mobile networks has doubled since the service launched, and Instagram videos are accounting for 30 percent of the total over-the-top video, beating out both YouTube and Instagram's biggest rival, Twitter's Vine. In fact, it would take a full year to watch all of the videos that were produced on Instagram within the first eight hours after the iOS and Android app updates were released. Avvasi also found that the service launch had a negative affect on the quality of videos delivered (in terms of network congestion, although I'm sure the content of the majority of the videos lacked quality as well.) White Noise
Never mind the tiny details; the point is that Instagram video had a visible impact.
Source: Avvasi. The surge in Instagram video won't continue at this pace. It's a new service, so a lot of people were just trying it out. But, the launch demonstrates what can, and likely will, happen whenever a new sharing service is introduced. And you can bet on more service launches around instantaneous multimedia sharing. It's one of the hottest mobile categories right now. On Monday, popular photo-sharing app SnapChat said it raised $60 million in Series B funding and revealed that 200 million SnapChats are sent each day. Sure, photos that disappear in 10 seconds may not seem threatening, but multiply that by 200 million, and it's enough to make the network flinch. In this age of instantaneous over-sharing and selfie self-expression, new services will continue to pop up. Some will fade away, and some will explode in popularity. Either way, mobile operators need to make sure they are prepared. — Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading