The Internet’s Here to Stay: Instagram Video and Netflix Make History

jobs trailer

The Instagram Video platform made Internet history this week, and not just because of a shirtless Ashton Kutcher (but, we’re not complaining about that part). Netflix made history, too. Twice. Looks like the Internet is here to stay.

Jobs, the forthcoming biopic (due in theaters August 16) about Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder, made Internet history as the first movie trailer to air exclusively on Instagram Video, the social medial platform for pictures and video clips.

“For the first-time ever, a movie studio has created and uploaded a trailer specifically for Instagram!” Open Road Films announced. “You’ve never seen an HD trailer on Instagram like this before.”

Instagram Video was added to the popular smart phone app on June 20th, presumably to compete with Vine, the Twitter video app. But users haven’t had as much luck with Instagram Video as they have with Vine. Unlike Instagram’s main focus—well filtered photos—the video quality coming from most of the users’ videos looks raw, shaky, unedited. The professional movie trailer just underscores how bad the rest of the videos actually are. “[I]t’s clear that pretty much everyone is bad at Instagram Video,” reports Vanity Fair.

Still, releasing the Jobs trailer on Instagram shows where the audience is—and, not surprisingly, they’re on their phones, taking pics, or at least, looking at them, especially when a shirtless Kutcher is involved. Besides, we wouldn’t even have Instagram if it weren’t for Steve Jobs and his iPhone, right? The least we can do is watch the trailer…

And just days after the Instagram Video trailer aired, the Internet made history again when two Netflix-only series were nominated for Emmy’s. Both House of Cards and Arrested Development received 2013 Emmy nominations despite the fact that neither are viewable on network or cable channels, just the Internet. Yes indeed, the Internet is here for good! (Take that, 1981.) But, if you’re reading this, you already knew that.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image clip from movie trailer

Jill Ettinger

Jill Ettinger is a Los Angeles-based journalist and editor focused on the global food system and how it intersects with our cultural traditions, diet preferences, health, and politics. She is the senior editor for sister websites OrganicAuthority.com and EcoSalon.com, and works as a research associate and editor with the Cornucopia Institute, the organic industry watchdog group. Jill has been featured in The Huffington Post, MTV, Reality Sandwich, and Eat Drink Better. www.jillettinger.com.