Twitter pins hopes on Periscope videos
App will be opened up to media, companies, others to broadcast live streams
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter is expanding its live video efforts beyond smartphones, but the struggling tech firm still has a lot to prove as buyout interest wanes, analysts say.
On Thursday, Twitter-owned Periscope — a live video app — said it would start allowing brands, media outlets and other creators to broadcast live video from other devices, such as professional cameras. Previously, people had to use Periscope’s mobile app on their smartphone or tablet to broadcast live video.
“We still strongly believe in
“Giving professional creators a toolset to stream live video is certainly a good idea, but I don’t get the sense that Periscope has as much traction as it should at this point or that this is the answer.” — Paul Verna, analyst, eMarketer
the power of sharing live video from mobile devices, but we’re also excited to broaden the opportunities for broadcasters to share new types of live video on Periscope,” the tech firm said in a post about the topic.
Broadcasters need to apply to access “Periscope Producer,” which allows users to stream video from sources outside of mobile devices.
Twitter has been making bigger bets on live video in the past two years as it tries to attract more viewers to its website. And with companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Walt Disney reportedly losing interest in purchasing Twitter, the stakes are getting higher for the social media company.
Some analysts on Thursday noted that the company’s video efforts have been fragmented and Periscope isn’t playing a big enough role to fuel user growth on Twitter.
“Giving professional creators a toolset to stream live video is certainly a good idea, but I don’t get the sense that Periscope has as much traction as it should at this point or that this is the answer,” said Paul Verna, an analyst with market research firm eMarketer.
Twitter and Periscope are competing with Facebook, which already opened up its live video platform in April so its 1.7 billion users could stream from drones and other devices.
But Twitter users still need to use Periscope — a separate app — to broadcast their own live videos. They can watch Periscope videos, which are embedded in tweets, on the site, though. Facebook Live is integrated within Facebook’s main mobile app, allowing people to stream live video and watch them without leaving the social media site.
Twitter, however, has been partnering with sports leagues, media outlets and others to stream high-quality live video directly onto its website. It also created an app so users could watch live video on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox One, allowing users to view the footage on a bigger screen.
“If Twitter sees significant lift, it will be from its marquee exclusive streaming partnerships, such as with CBS for presidential debates or with professional sports leagues like the NFL for Thursday Night Football games,” Jessica Liu, an analyst with Forrester Research, said in an email.
The games and presidential debate coverage were streamed on a separate web page on Twitter, which showed a video on the left side and tweets about the event on the right.
Periscope videos are displayed in tweets on a user’s timeline, making it tougher to attract a high amount of viewers.
Compared with Facebook, Twitter is better positioned for live events because its website delivers real-time conversation about what’s happening around the world, Liu noted.
On Thursday, the tech firm also announced that it was partnering with BuzzFeed to broadcast live election night coverage exclusively on the site.
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey is trying to make the website the first place people check for news updates. In an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg this week, Dorsey called Twitter the “people’s news network.”
Twitter purchased Periscope in 2015 for an undisclosed amount. The company paid $86.6 million for both Periscope and social media marketing startup Niche, a regulatory filing from May 2015 shows.
Twitter, which is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings this month, has 313 million monthly active users. Periscope announced in 2015 that it had 10 million accounts.
More than 200 million broadcasts were created in the first year that Periscope launched.