Instagram Acquires Luma To Improve How Your 15-Second Videos Look

Facebook said that it would enable Instagram to remain independent, and that it wouldn't ever cross any lines that would impact the user experience. Keeping true to that promise, Instagram itself (and not parent company Facebook) has just made a big acquisition: Luma. It's a video sharing app that almost no one has heard of... until now. Luma was previously known as Midnox, and while sharing was one of its features, video stabilization was the other. It's likely that Instagram executives are more interested in the latter.


Luma will indeed be shutting down soon, as its employees focus all of their energy on bettering Instagram. Luma's iOS app has already been removed from the App Store, and existing users will cease to have access to the service in 2014. The Luma team has issued the following statement in the wake of the news: "Eighteen months ago, we embarked on a mission to make capturing and sharing beautiful videos easy without expensive software or heavy equipment. By joining the exceptionally talented team at Instagram, we’re taking another big step towards realizing that mission."

Instagram will likely use Luma's technology to make the videos that appear in user streams look better. These editing tools are likely to show up soon, just as soon as integration is complete. It's obvious that Instagram is trying to stay one step ahead of Vine, and hey, it's proof yet again that competition is indeed a good thing.