Ahead of its Q1 earnings call this week, Twitter told BuzzFeed News that it plans to stream live video nonstop across its platform, making it easier for people to tune into what people are talking about.
There isn’t yet a set timeline for the rollout of its ‘ambient video’ programming; Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto told BuzzFeed News:
We will definitely have 24/7 (video) content on Twitter. Our goal is to be a dependable place so that when you want to see what’s happening, you think of going to Twitter.
It’s an interesting but not entirely surprising move for the company, which began streaming NFL games last September and garnered 3.5 million unique viewers. However, it lost its chance to stream games over the 2017-18 season to Amazon.
The idea behind always-on video is that it’ll give Twitter many more chances to sell valuable 15- and 30-second unskippable video ads. That should help the company monetize its platform more effectively once the project takes off, and also make good use of the tech infrastructure that’s proven that it can support a large audience for streaming content.
To that end, Twitter is considering hosting more sports content, including UFC coverage and sports highlights shows like The Rally.
It’s worth noting that Twitter’s 24/7 plans currently seem to focus only on US-based content; it’ll be interesting to see if the program expands to accommodate users from other countries where the service counts large audiences, including the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Germany.
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