01 May 2017

“Twitter teams up with Bloomberg for Streaming News”

The social-media company is joining forces with the global financial news outlet to create a service that will stream news produced solely for Twitter 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It is going to be focused on the most important news for an intelligent audience around the globe and it’s going to be broader in focus than our existing network, said Bloomberg Media’s chief executive officer, Justin Smith.

The partnership will be announced Monday at an event Bloomberg LP is holding for advertisers by company founder Michael Bloomberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Lukas I. Alpert

I had a very similar idea about two months ago, but unfortunately I didn’t find the time to write an article about it. I was thinking of TV news compared with series, when I realized they both suffer from similar problems: linear TV is not always available when people have the time or are in the mood to watch. TV news coverage is also pretty repetitive, with mostly the same headlines repeated throughout the day, maybe expanded with commentary and more footage if time permits. The problems are then twofold: if you’re at home with time to spare, you end up watching the same news all over again; if you’re busy, you might not find the time to watch when events that interest you are on air. The entertainment component of TV has been ‘revolutionized’ already by streaming providers like Netflix and HBO; might something similar happen with news eventually?

Twitter (or another company) could stream breaking news live (maybe interviews and debates as well) and save them for later, so that people that were not online can catch up on the situation. Ideally channels would update frequently with new developments, so that latecomers get the most up-to-date information, sort of like a Twitter moment, but with live video. This opens the possibility for personalized news streams, about the topics you’re interested in – I never cared much for sports news for example. Also, the footage should be saved indefinitely as a measure for accountability – like how people are now resurfacing Donald Trump’s old tweets to mock his current policies.

This announcement looks more like a regular news channel though, with live news reporting from the news outlet’s bureaus around the world, as well as a curated and verified mix of video posted on Twitter by the social-media platform’s users. It will be interesting to see how popular this feature will be, and, more importantly, how much money Twitter can make from the partnership (actually partnerships, since more have been revealed after I wrote this article, including Live Nation, BuzzFeed and The Verge). Twitter does have experience with streaming, from NFL games to concerts, but I am more concerned if this can be converted into a consistent source of revenues for the company. After all, streaming (both TV and music) is earning money from monthly subscriptions; showing ads against news content is a much harder proposition, since many brands prefer to be associated with positive content and news are often anything but positive.

Post a Comment