Instagram Tests Longform Horizontal Video With 'Features'
Instagram is testing a longform horizontal video offering called "Features," with a small US test and a group of creators in Brazil also testing it, according to The Verge.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the push in a video alongside Tessa Lyons, the company's VP of product. Instagram spokesperson Megan Buckley confirmed the US test and the creator testing in Brazil. The company has not described a general rollout date for the format.
The same testing program includes three other elements. Instagram is trying clips that point viewers to a longer video. It is also trying a way for creators to assemble a "series" of Reels, the short vertical clips (filmed and watched in portrait orientation) that remain the platform's core format. The third element is improvements to how live video is discovered, meaning how users find live broadcasts within the app.
The Features push sits alongside Instagram's TV application. That app launched as a Reels-focused pilot for Amazon Fire TV devices in the US. It has since expanded to Google TVs, Samsung TVs and Apple TV, per The Verge. The app is the surface on which the horizontal video work fits most naturally, since a television is a landscape display, wider than it is tall.
In June, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Instagram would test horizontal video on its Instagram for TV feature. In May, Social Media Today reported that Lyons said that, two years from now, Instagram will be a distinct part of creators' long-form strategy, alongside their short-form work.
The practical implications sit with three groups. Creators would need to plan for two formats with different pacing, framing and discovery mechanics, since a vertical Reel and a widescreen episode are produced and measured differently. Viewers would see a format that moves from phone-first consumption toward the living room screen. The platform would have to build discovery and recommendation logic that connects a short vertical clip to a longer horizontal asset, a harder ranking problem than surfacing either format alone.
In my view, the most useful way to read this is as a test of whether a short-form platform can credibly host longer, episodic content without fragmenting its audience. The "series" construct is the most direct hint at the answer. It lets a creator chain Reels into an ongoing narrative without building a new production pipeline for each installment. Whether that works will depend on completion rates and on whether viewers follow a series across formats, and the testing announced so far does not yet show either.
The broader context here is a competitive one for video creators and for the platforms that host them. Longform video has long lived on screens people already watch on television. An app that reaches those screens through Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TV and Apple TV gives Instagram a route into that viewing habit that does not require viewers to pick up a phone. The format is still in a small test, and the company has not said how it will be priced, monetized or measured.
What the announcement changes is narrow but concrete. Creators on Instagram now have a signaled path toward longer work on the same account, the same audience graph and, at least in testing, the same creator tools. For viewers, the change would be a choice of length and screen rather than a new app.
In my view, the next useful signals will come from how the US and Brazil tests perform, and from whether the TV app's horizontal content becomes a regular part of the catalog rather than a pilot.
