Twitter’s director of Augmented and Virtual Reality, Alessandro Sabatelli, announced that since Wednesday users would be able to enjoy interactive live 360 videos in the Periscope platform.
Sabatelli wrote in a blog post that the feature is not available for all users, as right now there is only a group of selected people that can stream 360º videos to date. This innovation from Twitter Inc. comes months after the feature became very popular in other social networks like Facebook and Youtube.
Twitter explained a bit how this new option would function while promising unseen experiences like watching behind the scenes footage or exclusive events from the users’ favorite celebrities and streamers. The live streamers will only have to attach a camera to the bottom part of a phone to start recording 360 interactive videos.
“When you see a video marked with a LIVE 360 badge, you can interact with it to change what you see by moving your phone or swiping the screen – all while watching live. See what’s unfolding behind, above, or below the broadcaster’s view for an immersive experience,” the company wrote in the blog post published this Wednesday.
It’s been a tough year for Twitter
Business Insider has reported that Twitter is in the middle of a complicated financial situation. The news agency stated that the company is not growing enough while it is losing substantial capital. On top of that, there is the harassment and abuse situation in the platform along with the fact that their prize value in the stock market is far away from their higher mark from early 2014 ($70+).
The executives from the company have talked about a possible sale to a major buyer. However, the talks didn’t succeed, and the company was not purchased. Disney, Salesforce, and other companies expressed interest in the acquisition of the social platform before the negotiation ended.
To revert this hard situation, Twitter is expanding itself while it decides in which direction the company wants to go. They acquired Periscope earlier in 2015 and with the launches of new the features in that platform it seems that video streaming is one of the principal focuses of the company.
Facebook, the direct rival that Twitter has, is also expanding their live and streaming video experience. The perfect example was the launch of Facebook Live, which even when it got out after Twitter’s Periscope, it seems to attract people more and more. Facebook is also investing in interactive 360 video experiences as the company’s profits (market cap of over $340 billion) sustain the expansion.
Source: Twitter Blog