Instagram is set to launch its TikTok competitor globally in just a few weeks.
According to a report from NBC News, sources familiar with the matter say the social media giant will roll out the feature, called Reels, to 50 countries across the world.
TechCrunch confirmed that Reels will be available in the US next month.
NBC reports that users will be able to use Reels through a new icon at the bottom of their screen in Instagram.
Users will then be able to post content created in Reels to Instagram’s main feed or Instagram Explore for public accounts.
Reels is what Instagram is calling a ‘video remix feature’ that allows users to take a 15-second video accompanied by music and then post that clip to their story.
If one doesn’t feel like sharing their Reel publicly they can also send them via the platform’s direct messaging feature – a key difference between Instagram’s duplicate and TikTok’s original feature.
The feature is already being tested in Brazil and parrots a posting format that helped popularize TikTok which now rivals mainstays like Instagram and Snapchat in its ability to court younger users.
Reels was originally thought to be called ‘Scenes’ which is a feature spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, a reverse-engineering expert who has a knack for spotting nascent or unreleased features.
Social media companies aren’t the only ones keeping an eye on TikTok.
In recent months, US lawmakers have called on the intelligence community to assess the app’s impact on national security, scrutinizing TikTok’s ties with the Chinese government.
