Called Video on Instagram, the service adds a video icon to the existing Instagram app and users can record 15-second video clips and edit them together for longer videos.
Video on Instagram pits the firm against Twitter’s hugely popular Vine app, which lets users record and share six-second clips.
There are also 13 new filters to give the videos the same retro feel as Instagram’s pictures.
‘We need to do to video what we did to photographs,’ said Kevin Systrom, the head of Instagram.
Systrom went onto say: ‘It’s the same Instagram we know and love, but it moves and I’m really excited about this, and I think the world will be. 130 million people will be using this from today – that’s really powerful. It’s a tool to remember, and about capturing moments; a way to stay connected.’
Before the announcement Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said: ‘We want to talk about something a little different.
‘People want to share a lot of different types of content and today, we’re going to focus on Instagram. In the last year we’ve tripled the team, and the community has more than 100million members. But we’re really just getting started here.’
The app is available on the iPhone and Android devices and can also automatically improve video to remove jitters, using a feature called Cinema – although it is only be available for the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.
