Image courtesy Meta.

Your Instagram reel addiction could start wasting a lot more of your free time.

Long the home of short-form videos of 3 minutes or less with a vertical orientation, Instagram announced Monday that it is testing horizontally formatted videos of up to 90 minutes in length, thus positioning itself as competition for YouTube and other video hosting platforms. The test is limited to “select creators” as of now, according to Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. Around 10,000 creators are expected to be invited to try it out in the US. Instagram started testing the long-form video capability in Brazil.

The new feature is called, well, Features. It’s aimed at podcasters, comedians, filmmakers and other longform creators, although there are no plans to start monetizing Features at the outset. Creators will be able to refer viewers to full-length videos from their short-form clips.

An Instagram rep said the platform is providing funding for longer-form content “directly with some creators right now to support them,” but that “it’s too early to share a long-term monetization model.”

“What you’re now going to be able to do is, you see a clip of a podcast that you love, you can just click and continue watching or watch the full video, and you’ll be able to dive in and see the whole thing because creators are going to be able to link these Reels to their overall feature,” said Tessa Lyons, Vice President of Product at Instagram. in a statement.

Podcasters have already been platforming their shows on streaming services like Netflix, which often demands video exclusivity from creators. Instagram also launched a TV app late last year, first as a Reels-focused experience and as a pilot for Amazon Fire TV devices in the US, but it’s since expanded to Google TVs, Samsung TVs and Apple TV.

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