On the new Twitter, clicking a tweet will spawn a preview in the right pane. When there’s a link to a YouTube or Ustream clip — two of Twitter’s first video partners — it will automatically embed the corresponding video player on Twitter.com.
Twitter has announced a new video partner — Blip.TV, which features over 50,000 independently-produced TV shows. Whenever someone shares a link to a Blip.TV clip, it will embed on Twitter.com (above.)
While short clips seem to be a good fit — news video, for example — would you watch a TV show on Twitter.com? Perhaps, since people are increasingly discovering TV shows from their friends via social media, but as Richard says in comments below, “I doubt I could sit still long enough for a full TV episode. Twitter is an ephemeral activity for me.” Although on the iPad, that may be a different story.
Twitter isn’t revealing any embedding usage metrics so far, only saying it’s “one of the most popular features of the new Twitter.”
One thing’s for sure: Twitter is just getting started with embedding partners. “We’re on a mission to give you more great multimedia content on Twitter,” writes @jodiolson on the Twitter blog. “In the next few months we’ll integrate with more content partners.”