Twitter announced an update to multimedia sharing that, together with another update, makes it easier to discover videos and in essence transitions Twitter toward becoming a multimedia sharing platform.

The announcement states clearly and without ambiguity that its goal is to become “the best place to share media” and posted examples of the new functionalities.

Starting today any Twitter app users can upload up to four videos, images, and/or GIFs within a single tweet.

This change partners with another important update that adds a video carousel to the Explore feature.

The video carousel allows users to discover more videos to watch.

Twitter’s announcement is clear that their goal is to transition their platform from mostly a text based social media destination into more of a multimedia sharing platform.

According to the announcement:

“This update is the latest example of how we’re working to make Twitter the easiest and most convenient place to share images, videos, and other creative content.

It complements the rollout of two new video products — full-screen videos and a new video carousel in the Explore tab — that help make it easier than ever for people to find and watch what’s happening on Twitter.”

The focus of this update is to provide a way for creators to express themselves while the updates to the video carousel helps users to discover the new videos.

Twitter explained:

“Mixing different types of visual content together in a single Tweet allows creators to express themselves beyond 280 characters and gives them more ways to tell their story.”

Examples of New Format

Twitter posted examples of new and creative ways to share media and tell a story.

One example is a side by side tweet juxtaposing an image and a tweet.

This kind of tweet provides the ability to juxtapose an image and a video and to also play the video while retaining the side by side formatting.

Uploading a side by side of an image and video offers the ability to watch a video version of the event and visually compare it to a photograph of the same event.

It makes an interesting and artistic way to display media showing the same event from different perspectives, so to speak.

Here’s another example of a side by side photo and video in a single tweet:

Big Changes at Twitter

Twitter has made numerous changes to its platforms to encourage monetization for creators.

But none of those updates caused a substantial change to the platform itself.

These new updates are significant because they profoundly change what Twitter is, going from a mainly text-based sharing platform to a multimedia sharing social site.

Citation

Read Twitter’s Announcement

Introducing mixed media: Videos, images, and GIFs together in one Tweet

Featured image by Shutterstock/aslysun