Twitter Wants You to Make Money From Videos Ads will soon roll before some videos on the microblogging site, with part of the revenue going to the uploader.
By Tom Brant •
This story originally appeared on PCMag
Facebook may be trying to wrestle with whether or not it's a media company, but Twitter certainly isn't. Today it announced a new plan to share revenue with users who upload video to the microblogging site.
Part of the plan is to add "pre-roll" advertisements to video clips, a tried-and-true model that internet video king Youtube and others have used for years. Eligible publishers can simply check a box before sending their video tweet, triggering advertisements that will roll before the clip. Twitter will offer the publisher a portion of the revenue from the ad.
Once the videos are live, publishers also now have more extensive tools to upload them and monitor their stats. In addition to a unified media library that displays all of an account's videos, GIFs and images, they also include the ability to schedule tweets and ensure stable and efficient uploads.
And in case you weren't convinced that Twitter's overtures to video creators isn't mostly about money, the company has also added an "earnings" section to Engage, its mobile video app for professionals.
Promoting video as a way for its most valuable content partners to generate profits is a smart move for Twitter, which earlier this year switched its app to the App Store's news category, where it took the top download spot. It was previously No. 10 in the social media category, behind Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Pinterest and others.
Facebook is also sharing revenue with top video uploaders, even as the world's largest social network makes other changes intended to reassure its users that photos and status updates comes before news articles, videos and other commercial content.
