Brace yourselves: Even more autoplay videos are coming to your Twitter timeline.
Starting in the next few days, broadcasts from Periscope will automatically play within tweets as Twitter tries to expand the appeal of its livestreaming app.
People can watch a stream on Twitter and use Periscope’s hearts (a.k.a. liking a video) and see comments if they double-tapped to full screen. They’ll still need to have Periscope downloaded to start a broadcast or to write a comment.
“This adds a whole new dimension to Twitter,” Periscope wrote today, revealing that there have been 100 million broadcasts from its roughly 10 million users since its launch less than a year ago.
Periscope broadcasts now come alive within Twitter https://t.co/R346R1lgZb
— Periscope (@periscopeco) January 12, 2016
This closer integration of the apps means Periscope users can expose their broadcasts to a larger audience and eliminates the need to open the app and sign in just to watch a stream. Perhaps not a coincidence, but the tie-in comes more than a month after behemoth Facebook said it add livestreaming capabilities for its users.
Still, expanding further into autoplay video is a tricky area for Twitter since it unintentionally exposes people to things they might not want to see, as evidenced by the Virginia news crew shooting, or be a battery and data-draining complication. Twitter, however, is attracted to the format because video commands higher ad rates, and brands like it because it’s hard to ignore.
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