Twitter to roll out immersive media viewer with vertical video scrolling

The move comes at a time when other social media apps like YouTube and Instagram have shifted their strategy and adopted TikTok like short video formats and UI for shorts and reels respectively

Microblogging platform Twitter has announced that it will soon roll out a designed video viewing experience. The newly redesigned experience will let the users watch the videos appearing in their tweets or feeds on full-screen.

The new update will also allow Twitter users to scroll vertically from the dual-screen view to watch more content on the platform. Twitter has also made adjustments to its explore tab and has added a video carousel feature along with tweets of user’s interest now appearing under a ‘Videos of you’ section.

The move comes when other social media apps like YouTube and Instagram have shifted their strategy and adopted TikTok-like short video formats and UI for shorts and reels, respectively. However, the micro-blogging site has only opted for UI elements for video content.

While the video carousel feature is already available to both iOS and Android users, the immersive media viewer will be rolled out in the upcoming days for iOS users who are using the platform in English. The announcement for the same was made through a blog post, which also stated that the company aims to make Twitter the best place for video. The blog post also included an embedded tweet to Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds, announcing the teaser to his much-awaited and upcoming film Deadpool 3. Twitter said that fun teasers would be an important part of the media viewing experience on the platform. 

In November 2020, the company launched Fleets to expand its incorporation of video into its platform. However, it was pulled down just eight months after its launch. Fleets attempted to introduce a story-like feature, first seen on Snapchat and later adopted by Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin. However, due to its technical glitches, the users termed it sluggish, after which it was pulled back.