A creator asked me recently: “are we going to do longform video on Instagram?” The answer is no and I wanted to explain why.

We do a number of different things on Instagram but at the heart of it there are really two jobs. One: connecting you with friends. Two: helping you explore your interests, usually through shortfrom video.

It turns out that those two things are symbiotic. You see an amazing video that makes you laugh out loud from a comedian doing a bit, and you send it to someone…