Instagram spooks Twitter and Snapchat with its own Halloween curation

When clicked on, a stream of scrollable videos stripped of their identifying information, like like count and description (but not the poster’s name), covered users’ phones’ screens in a vertical and immersive format. The channel went live on Saturday afternoon and is now gone from the app.

“It’s no secret that all platforms are shaping up to compete for eyeballs, and one of the best ways to do that is around live events and tentpole-type activations where they can each tap their wide audiences to make that meaningful, but easily digestible content from the masses for the masses,” Nick Cicero, founder of marketing agency Delmondo told Digiday.

The tab was curated by more than a half dozen employees at Facebook’s headquarters, reports Wired, which appropriately described it as a “pop-up cable network dedicated to Halloween.” For now, there are no plans for Instagram to add advertisers to the tab, but that could change once user’s are used to it.

Instagram is hoping that its 400 million users turn to the app as a way to sift through real-time news, a feature that many people go to Twitter for, and, increasingly so, Snapchat with its new news-themed Live Stories. Part of that initiative launched in June when it rolled out a more expansive “search and explore” function that let people find trending places and curated lists from power users.

“It’s becoming more of a way to see what’s going on around you in the moment. Obviously other social networks like Periscope are seeing huge growth as being a part of the trend in real-time content, so I think Instagram is trying to find their way into the space in a way that’s natural for them,” Jan Rezab, founder of social analytics firm Socialbakers told Digiday.

Just like Twitter Moments and Snapchat Live Stories, the apps are trying to figure out how to organize the massive amount of content that’s being uploaded to the platform. Launching these types of tool is also attractive to advertisers since they can offer more ads in these tabs and campaigns tailored to certain events.

Instagram did not immediately respond for comment.

Images via Twitter.