Recode: Twitter is finally paying its best users to create videos

Posted September 01, 2016

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Twitter is offering some of its most trusted content creators revenue deals for video content.  Twitter has been in trouble of late with dropping user numbers and poor monetization plans.  After a bad report at the start of the year, Twitter made a clear shift to try and make more of Twitter video.

Twitter first flirted with video when it introduced the app Vine.  Vine has proved to be popular, but with Instagram also having video and video elsewhere on the web it didn't have its intended resonance.  Furthermore, despite producing a slew of "Vine celebrities" the company did not capitalize on their popularity, and many transitioned to YouTube where their content could bring them some revenue at some point.

Twitter's next splash into video was with Periscope.  Again, the app was popular, but once more like it appeared, the foothold that they had was lost.  The other problem, again, was monetization.  Twitter found no way to make revenue from Periscope -- they still haven't.

Then, Twitter seemed to change its tack, and this is reflected in the news reported today.  Earlier this year Twitter bought the international streaming rights for NFL games and will begin to broadcast them via the Internet.  This is a step towards broadcasting, and Twitter hopes it will bring in revenue.  What Twitter is looking for now is trusted quality content to bring people back to Twitter. 

The revenue deals for video content creators will hopefully bring in advertising money for them, but also reinvigorate video on Twitter. 

One takeaway from this: video is the driving force on the web right now, and should only grow in the coming years.

Kurt Wagner from recode reports:

Twitter wants the kind of video creators YouTube has — and the massive audiences that come with them.

To make this dream a reality, the company is pulling a page from YouTube’s playbook: It’s going to sell ads alongside creator videos and share that ad revenue with the people making the content. And Twitter is offering very appealing terms.

Unlike YouTube, which gives 55 percent of the money to creators and keeps 45 percent, Twitter is using the same revenue split it already offers other Amplify video partners, like the NFL: 70 percent to the content creator and 30 percent back to Twitter, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.

Of course, Twitter needs to offer an appealing revenue split like this. It’s nowhere close to the video destination YouTube and even Facebook have become, and it’s late to the game when it comes to paying creators. The network’s high-profile stars have wanted a revenue split for some time — it’s been a point of contention for the company’s stable of “Vine stars,” many of whom have left for places like YouTube where their videos actually make money.

Read the full article.