Instagram expands TikTok rival 'Reels' to more countries
Facebook-owned Instagram has expanded its new video-music remix feature Reels, which takes inspiration from the Chinese short video making app TikTok, to France and Germany. Instagram Reels was first launched in Brazil last year as a pilot.
According to a TechCrunch report, Instagram will now enable users to share Reels to their main Instagram feed, in addition to Stories. Instagram Reels allows users to record short, 15-second video clips set to music or other audio and share those on the platform.
Just like TikTok, users can soundtrack their 'Reels' with a huge catalogue of music, or borrow the audio from anyone else's video to create a remix of their meme or joke. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that in India, TikTok has gone ahead of Instagram. He also mentioned that TikTok works much like Instagram's Explore feature.
Facebook's experimental app division has also introduced a new iOS app called Collab for making and mixing music with friends. The social network also has a stand-alone app called ‘Lasso'. Currently available in the US, users can record themselves dancing and lip-syncing to music, similar to what they can do on TikTok.
Google-owned YouTube is reportedly working on a TikTok rival called Shorts, to be introduced by the end of this year.
