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Vine does not look like it is going anywhere for the time being, even with Instagram video taking a big partition of users away from the app. The overall feel is Vine is now a place for funny people, whereas Instagram video is for everyday videos from friends.
The next update on Instagram could incorporate messaging into the scene and should be available around 2014, according to sources. The messaging feature would be the first type of one-to-one chat, but seems counterproductive to getting Instagram users on Facebook.
We do not believe Instagram will add their own stand-alone messaging feature, instead we believe they will incorporate Facebook “chat-heads” to the mix and possibly make it so only users with Facebook accounts can use the feature, closing the gap of users who sign up with an email account.
It is odd that Instagram wants to move into messaging at all, considering there is already plenty of messaging services like WhatsApp and BBM grabbing hundreds of millions of users, on top of Facebook Messenger, a dedicated Facebook app just for messaging friends.
Not only would this be a strange move, but it would clunk up the Instagram experience. When Instagram announced video, one of the most requested features was a split between videos and photos, allowing people to check different feeds without getting interrupted by videos.
Instagram works because it is light on the user and unlike Facebook, it offers only one media type, without any messaging and limited commenting. This makes Instagram a powerful and very accessible social network to anyone who wants to post photos, even if the photos aren’t great.
We can see this messaging tool becoming more of a way to spam on Instagram than anything else. We hope that if the update does add messaging, it comes with the same design as Facebook’s chat heads, a light way to use IM.
