IGTV...is this the end of YouTube?

There we have it, you guys! Shots fired! I thought it was relatively unfeasible for a company to potentially disrupt and take market share away from YouTube, which pretty much has a monopoly on long form user-generated content. That is until now. Now, for those of you who aren't aware, Instagram just announced that it's going to try to take a shot at YouTube by creating what's called IGTV. This is an app that allows vertically oriented videos, full screen, up to 4K resolution and as long as 60 minutes.

But now keep in mind, there are many companies who have tried and failed to copy the YouTube model. Anybody remember Vidme? Yeah, that was a joke. See, usually I just roll my eyes anytime someone says this is going to be the next YouTube, but somehow I feel that this might just be different. This video, by the way, is really meant to be more like a discussion, so feel free to comment down below and let me know your thoughts on Instagram trying to copy the YouTube model, what you think is going to happen, and some of the things you think Instagram could improve on that YouTube just isn't doing.

And I read every single comment, so anything you write down below, I 100% will read it. This is probably also a good time for me to plug my Instagram, so feel free to follow me there. If you like my latest picture and write a nice comment on it, I will pick a random person and give them $100. So there you guys go, there's a good incentive. Just add me on Instagram and let's get into the video.

So anyway, this Instagram video concept I believe is going to be widely popular, and the timing of this is also impeccable and comes in the wake of YouTube's recent controversy of demonetization and censorship. Now, don't get me wrong, because I love YouTube and I owe YouTube a lot, but in recent months, it's appealed too heavily on advertisers and making them happy, and in the process, has just become too family-friendly. They frequently censor content, they suggest videos which most appeal to advertisers like Jimmy Fallon and BuzzFeed, and they suppress otherwise great content creators because they might be just a little bit too controversial.

Now, if this continues, YouTube will end up showing you what they want you to see, which coincidentally appeals to advertisers, and it's not really what you want to see. And this is really the problem. Now, as in background, Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for, at the time, a whopping $1.65 billion. Prior to then, Google had been trying to create their own video sharing service but was failing, so purchasing YouTube, their main competitor, was the smartest thing that they could do.

Google was able to integrate its intuitive search features into a video form website, and that grew into what YouTube is today. However, only a company as massive as Google could actually afford the maintenance of a data-driven website of that caliber. They took the bet that even though hosting that amount of data was extremely expensive, that eventually costs would come down as technology improved, and eventually they would become profitable.

You combine that with Google's unique self-learning algorithms, and you have an absolutely winning combination. The issue here is that no one has been able to take any share away from YouTube simply because they're too big to mess with. There's no competition, and therefore really nowhere else to go. They pretty much have the entire market, they have the existing infrastructure, and they're owned by Google, which is arguably one of the most prolific, resilient, and profitable companies out there that could pretty much do whatever they want.

And for those of you that are curious, Google is now valued at 34 trillion dollars. But then on the other hand, we have Facebook, a $460 billion company who honestly was starting to become irrelevant. But Facebook is really good at doing two things. The first thing is getting you to stay within the Facebook ecosystem. If they notice they have a competitor, what they do is buy it and then integrate it back into Facebook.

Take Instagram for instance; they bought this in 2012 for $1 billion. They did this because they wanted their share of mobile content, and that they got very well. Since then, fun fact, Instagram is now valued at over $100 billion. Also, not to mention all of the apps, websites, and programs that ask you to log in through Facebook; it almost requires that you make a Facebook just for the ease of logging in all of these different apps and websites. This makes it so that they force you to make a Facebook account if you want to do just about anything, and for the ones who aren't, they probably will be soon.

Now, the second thing Facebook is really, really good at is user-driven data, and the scary part is Facebook often knows more about you than you do about yourself. Facebook knows exactly what you type, it knows where you've been, it knows who your friends are, and it knows where you're spending your money. And with all of that data, it's able to aggregate it and reasonably predict, with fairly good accuracy, what they think you will want to see or buy next.

This is why sometimes you can often just be thinking about something, and then all of a sudden it randomly comes up on your Facebook as a suggested item, when you think, “I have never typed that, I have never been there, I have never mentioned this before,” but somehow Facebook knows I've been thinking about that. Those types of future predicting algorithms are absolutely our future, and for advertisers, this is their wet dream. They can target such a niche audience and capitalize it fairly easily with Facebook's data.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not against Facebook using this type of data. Honestly, I really don't care, and Facebook has to make money somehow; it makes sense. But this type of data is really their greatest asset, and today I really believe that the future is all pointing in one direction, and that, you guys, is user-generated content. Even though companies like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and HBO are all investing a lot of money into producing their own high-quality content like Stranger Things or Black Mirror—which, by the way, those things are awesome—I still believe the real magic is in individual content creators creating what they feel is most authentic to them.

So far, Instagram has done an exceptional job at this through pictures and short form video, and they've absolutely dominated it. In return for Facebook buying Instagram, Facebook was able to capture a younger audience and stay relevant to a new and rapidly growing user base. But Facebook had one major flaw with this, and that was that many of their influencers would then link to their YouTube page, forcing people to leave Instagram. Instagram became almost like a sister social media to YouTube influencers and vice versa to Instagram influencers.

At this time, Facebook just can't afford, and they can't comprehend having their existing users leave Instagram to go to YouTube, so it makes sense to allow their own influencers to create content on their own platform for their existing user base. I can totally imagine Mark Zuckerberg sitting there in his chair just thinking, “It's all going according to plan! Now no one is going to leave my Facebook ecosystem; they're going to be trapped there forever!”

Now, if Instagram executes this properly, I do think it's reason for YouTube to be concerned, and frankly, I think some healthy competition with YouTube would do all of us some good, and that they might actually cater a little bit more to what their users want and need. But from the way I see it, in order for this to actually work for Instagram, a few things need to happen.

So number one, the first thing they need to do is allow horizontal video. They think they know what we want, which they think we want vertical video, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of us just don't like that. While vertical videos are okay and we're used to it for short videos on Instagram, it's just too narrow of a range of view. Now, if they can copy YouTube's format to be able to change the layout of a video depending on how you rotate your phone, I think they will be just okay.

But in my opinion, only allowing videos to be in portrait mode on YouTube is a huge mistake and it's also a very narrow-minded move, pun intended. Now, the second thing they need to do is allow for monetization. This could be their biggest obstacle but also their biggest opportunity. Digital video advertising right now is extremely lucrative, with revenues expected to reach almost $20 billion by 2020. Instagram will really need to take a stab at monetization in order to appease their creators; otherwise, I'm just concerned that Instagram video is going to take a backseat to YouTube until creators have a financial incentive to prioritize one over the other.

See, right now Instagram really has no way to compensate its creators for what they bring to the table, but I do feel like at some point this is going to change, and the sooner they do this, the bigger the market they will have. Not to mention that I don't know any way right now to block advertisements on Instagram like I can with AdBlock on YouTube, unless you know something I don't. Comment down below, but until Instagram starts to monetize, this could be a really good opportunity for new creators to get on and start making content who wouldn't be able to monetize on YouTube anyway.

So for Instagram, in the process, they could end up creating an entirely new audience that's unique and specific just for Instagram. This could be the Jake and Logan Pauls of the future. Now, the third thing that they need to do to be successful is allow a user-friendly algorithm to give you the content that you want to watch, not the content that they want you to watch. This is what YouTube has recently been struggling with, and it'll be interesting to see how Instagram handles this, because they have Facebook behind them, and some of the best user-driven data probably on the web.

I have a feeling that they can reasonably and accurately predict the type of content you want to see, potentially even better than YouTube. And if they just straight up copied YouTube's format with next up videos and suggested or recommended videos, I think they're going to be just fine. Now, the fourth thing that I would love to see is for them to allow in-video tagging. I would love it if someone just comes up on the video that it allows you at that point to click that person and see their Instagram page without ever leaving that video. This is something that no one has implemented yet, but I'd love to see it as an active feature, and Instagram is the perfect place to do that.

Now, number five, I would say comment ranking is extremely important. One of the best parts about YouTube is really the community and everyone that comments down below. I would love for you to be able to like or dislike comments, maybe in a similar format to Reddit, and boost the best comments to the top and the worst ones down below. And let's be real here, half the fun with YouTube is really just reading the comments. Number six, and also the most important one, is that they need to listen to what their users want, which is oftentimes a chronological timeline.

I know it sounds mind-blowing, but most people don't want this algorithm to push up the content that they think you want to see. I just want to see the stuff posted in the order it was posted, and that's good enough. This is something that so many companies just don't listen to because they want to push the content they think you want to see the most, when in actuality, you're just fearful that you might miss out on something because it's not posted to the very top of the page.

And in turn, you just end up getting frustrated and leave. And with that said, a quick message to YouTube as well: you would do exceptionally well if you just eased up a little bit on advertising regulations. I really believe that when done properly, the net benefit to everyone would be amazing. Just allow advertisers the option to pick and choose the specific channels that they want to advertise on. If YouTube was able to successfully match advertisers with videos that were previously less advertiser-friendly, they would end up making a ton of money, and so would the creator. The net benefit to everybody would be huge.

Also, easing up on the PGUs of YouTube would be a vast improvement. I totally understand that there are kids on YouTube, but honestly, that's what parental controls are for. I don't think that we need to be censoring advertisers from specific content just because it might be a little bit more risky. So all in all, I'm pretty optimistic about Instagram TV, and I'll definitely be giving it a shot. I think it's a really good opportunity for anyone who wants to get in the video space but who's just too concerned with the current competitiveness and nature of YouTube, or for those who can't monetize on YouTube anyway and who don't mind creating content on IGTV really just for fun and to build out their audience.

Now is really your chance, and at the very least, if IGTV is not successful, I think it's going to be a great wake-up call to YouTube to realize that this market is at risk. They are at jeopardy and they should better cater to their users and their customer base to find out exactly what they want. So with that said, make sure to add me on Instagram! Go ahead, if you like, and comment on my latest post. I will give a random person $100 just to give you guys a fun incentive to go over and add me on Instagram.

Let me know your thoughts, comment down below, let me know what you think is going to happen, what you think of IGTV. And like I said, I read every single comment. So if you guys enjoy content like this, make sure to give the video a like; it does really help. I'm not going anywhere, so if you guys enjoy content like this and you haven't already subscribed, make sure just to smash that subscribe button. I post three videos a week, so if you want to be a part of that, just subscribe, hit the notification bell, so YouTube notifies you anytime I upload a video. Uh, that is it. Uh, I'm out of things to say. Thanks for watching!