The Twitter Video Player could be a real competitor to YouTube

Twitter announced a couple of months ago that 2015 would see the launch of the microblogging website’s own native video service, one which could potentially serve as a rival to YouTube. Now that 2015 is actually here, Twitter has decided to give us a few more details on the service, and while information is still scare, it certainly looks like an interesting service.

We’ve known for a while that Twitter’s been planning to stick a homemade video player in your timeline, but for the most part, details have been scarce. Now we’ve got a closer look, as Daniel Raffel has flagged a Twitter FAQ about the player that sheds some light on the idea. According to the site, the player lets users upload up to 10 minutes of video in the MP4 or MOV format. Notably, the company is not capping a size limit on the video files, and are thus “encouraging partners to use the highest resolution source video.” One word in that phrase — partners — suggests the project is aimed toward advertising for businesses and brands, rather than your everyday user. But perhaps in a sign of things to come, Twitter is shutting out YouTube.