Twitter upgrades video limits to court creators
LOS ANGELES - Twitter is upping its video game.
On the eve of the VidCon convention for video creators, which is dominated by YouTube and Facebook, Twitter today announced new tools aimed at convincing online "influencers" to do more on Twitter than just tweet.
The limit for posting videos within a tweet was 30 seconds, but is now being upped to 140 seconds, or 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Meanwhile, key online creators who use Twitter's Vine app, popular for posting 6 second videos, will get to be seen on Vine in longer videos, up to 140 seconds, by inserting the video into the Vine.
Finally, Twitter is launching a new app, Twitter Engage, aimed at online creators, to help them "interact with their fans," and offer analytics on how their tweets perform. The app is only available on the Apple IOS platform. The app looks to the large community of "influencers"--folks with large social followings like Thomas Sanders and iJustine, to use as a tool for keeping up the info flow.
The app "reviews all of your videos, GIFs, images, and other Twitter activity, allowing you to efficiently track post-by-post performance and continue the conversation around your content," writes Twitter, in a blog post.
Vine, Twitter’s video app, is very popular with young performers who use it for short, comedy bits.
Many “Viners” as they’re called, have built a career based on their Vine work--perhaps you’ve heard of King Bach or Britney Furlan.
Vine has gotten a little lost in the Facebook vs. YouTube wars, so now Twitter is adding some muscle, to beef it back up. Those 6 second Vine clips can now be way, way, way, longer, simply by inserting the 2 minute and twenty second video into the Vine.
VidCon began as a convention that celebrated the YouTube world, but in the last year, has morphed into a major platform for the burgeoning online video business, where Facebook, Snapchat, YouNow, Instagram, Twitter's Vine and a newcomer, Musical.ly, have become major competitors. VidCon starts Thursday.