Pulse News

**Creator Economy**

**Why A Reels App Makes Sense**

By Kaya Yurieff

Feb 27, 2025, 2:00pm PST

Instagram has been firing on all cylinders to take advantage of the uncertainty around TikTok in the U.S. The latest: the Meta Platforms-owned app is now considering whether to spin out Reels into a separate app, as we were first to report on Wednesday.

A separate app for Reels could make a lot of sense. Instagram has had an identity crisis in recent years as it has tried to balance social connections with entertainment. People use Instagram for private messaging, seeing posts from friends and family, as well as watching videos from creators and keeping up with news. That variety can be a detraction.

Social posts from friends and family, for instance, can lead to drama (not the good kind!) and for young people, pressure to live up to the glamorized lifestyles and looks that have become a hallmark of the app. These types of problems led Instagram to experiment with hiding likes and rolling out anti-bullying features and ways to mute accounts.

Meanwhile, users flock to TikTok and YouTube primarily for entertainment. A Reels app could serve a similar purpose, sidestepping some of the thorny issues of a thriving social network. What's more, it could look and feel a lot more like TikTok!

Instagram tried a similar video effort in 2018 with IGTV, a standalone app to watch longer videos, as it went after YouTube viewers. At the time, Instagram was essentially starting from scratch, tapping big-name celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Selena Gomez to post. Many of them didn't post much — or at all — after launch, and it shut down the IGTV app in 2022. In contrast, Instagram already has plenty of Reels content from creators.

A Reels app may make it easier for Instagram to add even more features popular on TikTok, including shopping and livestreaming. The app could also potentially integrate more tools specifically for creators, such as editing features or even new money-making opportunities.

Meta has launched separate apps before, most recently text-based Threads in July 2023 in the wake of backlash to Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, now X. Separate apps are also a way to spur growth. Threads now has 300 million monthly users and recently started selling ads.

When companies “build in features and functionality into an app, it becomes all bloated and is never quite as good as a dedicated app," said Matt Navarra, an independent social media consultant. "If they tried to bake Threads into Instagram, it would be very confusing and people wouldn't use it," he added. "For Threads, they couldn't have done it any other way."

The same thinking seems to have applied to Instagram's new Edits app, which aims to take on CapCut, a popular video editing app for creators owned by TikTok parent ByteDance. While Instagram could have integrated more editing features within the app, if it really wants to compete with CapCut, it makes sense to launch as a separate souped-up app with more features. There's only so much you can cram into one app.