It’s been coming for some time, however Twitter has at the moment confirmed that Twitter Blue subscribers – all 650k of them – can now add movies as much as two hours lengthy in the app.
As per Twitter:
“Subscribers can upload videos up to 2 hours long (1080p) on twitter.com and Twitter for iOS. Subscribers can upload videos up to 10 minutes long on Android. If you aren’t a Twitter Blue subscriber, you can still upload videos up to 140 seconds long on any platform.”
So a fairly large discrepancy there – simply over 2 minutes of add capability totally free customers, however movie-length uploads for paying subscribers.
Which might be accurately. Though, evidently, longer add capability hasn’t been a lot of an enticement for Twitter Blue subscribers simply but, provided that Twitter added hour-long uploads into the Twitter Blue providing again in December, and so far, solely about 0.3% of Twitter customers have signed as much as the $8 monthly bundle.
But then once more, while you additionally contemplate that 80% of Twitter users don’t ever post anything to the app, Twitter solely must get a small proportion of lively customers to pay up and begin posting longer clips for this to be of profit, at the very least to a point.
With the appointment of NBCU exec Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of the firm, Twitter additionally appears to be seeking to make video content material a much bigger focus, with Tucker Carlson’s new Twitter present doubtlessly simply the first in a brand new sequence of unique video content material additions.
Twitter chief Elon Musk has lengthy talked about Twitter competing with YouTube for video talent, and perhaps, utilizing Yaccarino’s expertise in constructing a subscription TV service (Peacock), the firm will now look to really enact this, and push video content material to the forefront in the app.
Which gained’t be simple, and the incentive actually isn’t there as but to get creators posting unique content material to the app. But if Twitter can set up a brand new income share program – one other component that Musk has talked about – then there might be a extra viable path ahead in bringing extra viewers to the app, and constructing advert alternatives.
Though viewers attain just isn’t the factor that’s conserving advertisers away from Twitter proper now. Twitter has misplaced round 50% of its top advertisers since Musk took over, as a consequence of issues together with his method to ‘free speech’, and the content material, and customers, that he’s permitting to stay lively in the app.
Advertisers don’t need their promotions showing alongside offensive materials, whereas Twitter can be permitting adverts to be topic to Community Notes, the place customers can refute the claims made in them – which Musk additionally says has lost Twitter some of its big spenders.
With these current developments at Twitter in thoughts, it might not matter if it might construct its video viewers – however then once more, in normal, when you’ve got giant sufficient attain, advertisers will comply with, no matter the perceived dangers.
Yaccarino additionally has way more expertise than Musk on the video entrance, and he or she might look to shift Twitter in that path, which is probably going one other key component of her appointment.
Whatever comes subsequent, it appears clear that video will play a much bigger position, and longer uploads are one other piece of that puzzle, which might assist to shift consumer behaviors.
