Twitter quietly reveals how live video will look alongside tweets

Scott Goodacre -

Twitter has quietly revealed how its upcoming partnership with the NFL to show games live alongside tweets may look.

Using Wimbledon to demonstrate how tweets look alongside live video, the new feature was revealed in a number of tweets from staff at the company as well as the @Wimbledon account.

In a comment to Recode a Twitter spokesperson said:

[blockquote align=”none” author=”Twitter spokesperson”]Twitter is increasingly a place where people can find live streaming video, and that includes exciting sporting events like Wimbledon. This livestream is an extremely early and incomplete test experience, and we’ll be making lots of improvements before we launch it in its final form[/blockquote]

The final product will likely look very different to how the Wimbledon broadcast does when it eventually goes live. Right now tweets don’t update automatically and need to be prompted – expect that to change.

As you can see from the screenshot above, at present the live video feed is to the left of the tagged tweets. On mobile this moves to be above the tweet stream. It’s likely this new layout will lead to more engagement around sports events as fans see their tweets published in real-time alongside the live footage.

No details are known yet about the deal between Wimbledon and Twitter – including why we’ve waited until midway through the final week for this to materialise – but it’s assumed it’s due to a partnership with ESPN given the company’s account being featured under the player.

Twitter is keen to make the move into live sports broadcasting and recently signed a reported $10m deal with the NFL to show full games for free around the world during 2016.

You can see what Twitter’s vision for live broadcasting looks like here.