Twitter Adds Video Support So You Can Watch Ads, Err, Message Friends
Twitter added two new services today to a) help people DM bomb lots of people at the same time and b) try to compliment Vine with (slightly longer) in-app ad support video support.
Yes, Twitter now lets you capture, edit, and share video directly from the Twitter app. Unsurprisingly, the video interface looks a lot like Vine, which Twitter acquired in 2012, except instead of seven-second clips, you can create videos as long as half a minute. The interface is primarily made up of thumbnails of clips in your camera roll. You can also choose to shoot a new video on the spot and upload to Twitter.
This move is probably motivated, in part, by other platforms like Facebook and Instagram steadily adding video support in their timeline, and also to (obviously) gives companies the opportunity to flood the internet with their carefully crafted 30-second ads. So adding video for Twitter is a win-win, for all us—maybe not so much. Thankfully, Twitter promises that videos won’t immediately begin playing in your feed, so you can choose whether or not to listen to one of your followers’ (or advertisers’) visual piece of genius.
More: Twitter Adds Video Support So You Can Watch Ads, Err, Message Friends