Blip and SoundCloud Join Twitter's Expanded Tweets

Twitter delighted content creators everywhere when the microblogging site extended its expanded tweets - previously reserved for YouTube videos and Instagram photos - to other content publishers. Blip and SoundCloud were among the launch partners who now have more to offer than 240 characters -- and more to gain in return. Tweets from Blip, a discovery site for original web series, will now include videos. See how they entice their potential viewers with this provocative headline: Normally, a link would take the viewers to the video on blip.tv, but of course Blip can't keep the public waiting on that news! It's worth their while to eliminate this extra step, as tweets with rich media get three to four times more engagement than regular tweets. Here's Paul Rudd, ready to share his butt hair secrets in the expanded tweet: Video tweets could be a gold mine for content creators, as the currency is the video itself. See how this video with "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker scores some advertising dollars while the YouTube video plays on Twitter: SoundCloud users should also appreciate being able to share their tracks directly with their Twitter followers, especially unknown artists whose names don't stand out in the feed. SoundCloud doesn't sell ads on its audio tracks - the company uses a freemium subscription model to give artists a way to upload and distribute their music, as well as sample and remix songs in a creative commons environment. But there's no reason why other music sites, as well as radio shows and podcasts, wouldn't benefit from the service. It's less clear how the expanded tweets will help news organizations like the The Wall Street Journal, Breaking News, TIME, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Der Spiegel Online, which have all partnered with the microblogging site. The content looks great: on this sample New York Times article you can see a headline, a picture, a caption, and the Twitter handles of both the news organization and the writer. (For writers who have avoided using their personal handles for work, there's no going back now.) It makes the tweets look a little more like search engine results, except that they auto-populate in real time. But if the readers don't click through to the full article, what does the publisher get out of it? Bird image by Barry Barnes via Shutterstock.

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Blip and SoundCloud Join Twitter's Expanded Tweets

Devon Glenn

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Devon Glenn