In November 2014 Twitter announced that it would be establishing its own native video service. Thanks to some clever detective work by one Twitter user we now have a better sense of what new video offering will look like.
What we know
Twitter is currently opening up limited access to the video Twitter tool. It appears that this can be accessed through the URL video.twitter.com, unfortunately currently only verified users have access to the video player.
Becoming verified
Twitter selects key individuals and brands to verify on Twitter. At the moment Twitter does not accept verification requests from the general public. This means that the video player tool will be unavailable to the vast majority of Twitter users for the time being. You can learn more about how to become verified by visiting https://support.twitter.com/articles/119135-faqs-about-verified-accounts#video.twitter.com.
Key points about the Twitter’s video tool
Twitter has added a FAQ which provides more in-depth information about the new player. Some of the key points include:
- Videos on the Twitter video tool can be up to ten minutes in length and there no limit on the file size.
- Twitter video player will only support mov and MP4 files.
- There is no indication that users will be able to edit videos within the player.
- Users will not be able to be schedule Tweets using the video publishing tool. Videos will either need to be delivered immediately to all followers.
- Videos can be used as part of an advertising campaign and then hidden from the users followers.
Analytics with Twitter’s video tools
Video player will also be able to add analytics using the Video Publisher UI. The metrics that can be analysed for video’s published using the tool include:
* Video quartile completion rate
* Overall view count
* Promoted vs. organic traffic
* Video starts
Twitter video player will not support any 3rd party analytics integrations.
Competition for YouTube
Users will not be able to use third party video services such as YouTube with the player. Twitter users will also be able to upload the same video that they have uploaded to YouTube, but they will not be able to use the YouTube URL within the Twitter video player.
The decision to not include YouTube videos within the platform is interesting as it suggests Twitter views the player as an alternative rather than to complimentary to YouTube. Twitter obviously believes that it can be a viable competitive to YouTube. Given Facebook’s own success with video this may in fact be correct.
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