Twitter was said to be working on its own video service since November last year. Now, according to a report from TechCrunch, the micro blogging site’s new service will host videos upto 10 minutes.
The native video platform will support videos up to 10 minutes in length with no cap on file size. These videos will be an extension of the existing Twitter Cards functionality, said the report. For starters, the video service will support MP4 and MOV files. Videos should use a 16:9 aspect ratio and will users can pick a thumbnail to customize how it appears on their Twitter timeline with png and .jpg thumbnail uploads.
Users can tweet videos but the tweets cannot be scheduled in advance. The video platform will not allow YouTube or outside videos and all of them must be uploaded to the Twitter platform itself. Third-party advertisers are not allowed to run placements on the content either. At present the video service has no editing tools and videos can only be either sent to all subscribers or be hidden and used as part of an ad campaign on the social network. Users also get some stats for their content such as number of views and percentage of video that keep the audience interested.
The video platform from Twitter is aimed at keeping the content on the service and increase user engagement, an area where the company is lacking.