Twitter to show you more video content in trends and on timelines

By Saqib Shah Published February 17, 2017

twitter usersnames character limit man holding iphone 6 with on the screen — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Twitter wants you to watch more videos. To help give user-generated clips and professional live-streams maximum exposure, the platform is surfacing video in more places.

First up, Twitter is making sure you see more live video courtesy of Periscope in relation to breaking news and events. Now, when you access its trending feed within its recently launched Explore tab, you may see a “live” icon next to certain results. Tap on the trend in question, and Twitter will show you live-streams alongside regular tweets.

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Watch what's trending – LIVE! You'll now see Periscopes surfaced in top trends. pic.twitter.com/Bhj8JT2ITw

— Creators (@XCreators) February 14, 2017

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Seeing as Periscope’s users often post live broadcasts of breaking events around the world, the clips make ideal visual accompaniments for trending news stories on Twitter. The likes of PBS and digital media company Cheddar are also increasingly using the app to air live coverage from the Senate floor, White House press briefings, and news conferences.

The change may be the handiwork of Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour, who was promoted to Twitter’s executive team last year, and is now reportedly handling product and engineering for live video on the platform.

As Twitter moves to further integrate Periscope with its flagship service (having already added the ability to go live from within its main app), who better to handle the video experience on the service than the Periscope co-founder? Let’s not forget that Periscope itself does a great job of curating breaking news and events streams into channels that users can tune into. Twitter also recently added 360 live video to Periscope, so be prepared to see more of those types of streams, too.

Another change that has been spotted on the Twitter app is a new “top videos for you” section. What seems to be an experiment, the new section displays relevant videos within the timeline in the vein of the platform’s “while you were away” feature for tweets, according to Mashable. The videos the test surfaces aren’t just limited to clips from accounts you follow, but can also include content Twitter thinks you may enjoy based on your activity.

With the platform witnessing an 11 percent increase in daily engagement during its fourth quarter, according to its own estimates, it’s no wonder Twitter is trying to show its highly active users more video. After all, the company has ramped up visual content through a number of multimillion-dollar deals with media broadcasters and sports leagues, including Bloomberg, the NFL, and NBA, among others.

Twitter recently revealed that it attracted 31 million unique viewers, who tuned in to more than 600 hours of live video across around 400 general events between September and December. Those numbers should encourage it to strike even more video partnerships, allowing it to add more visual content across its platform.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…

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