Twitter debuted its Thursday broadcast of a National Football League (NFL) game smoothly. Throughout the matchup between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, the social network attracted generally positive tweets, notes Reuters.
Twitter debuts NFL Live Video successfully
Twitter users were able to see tweet commentary on mobile devices and computers. The commentary ran alongside a video feed that featured the same commentary and footage available on the TV broadcast. The game broadcast was available on Amazon Fire TV and on Microsoft Xbox One in select countries and Apple TV globally through the Twitter app. Previously, the NFL live-streamed an October 2015 game on Yahoo.
John Shahidi, an app developer, tweeted, “In an Uber watching #TNF [Thursday Night Football] on Twitter.”
Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams tweeted that it took (him) five seconds of watching #TNF on Twitter to know that it is the wave of the future. However, there were some who complained of constant buffering and said the video was running behind the television broadcast, noted Reuters. DCBlueStar, another user, wrote that the quality is better than that of his HD TV, but the delay was no good, and thus, he would stick to the TV.
Thursday’s game, which was available on Twitter’s platform worldwide, was the first of the ten games that the micro-blogging giant is planning to stream as it works to dominate live video. The social network has been struggling with advertising competition and user growth. The live streaming of games gives it a new avenue to influence users as it attempts to compete with rivals like Facebook.
Making business users’ customer service more prominent
Apart from this, the company also introduced a new feature for businesses that makes it even simpler to jump on the platform and use it for customer service. The feature allows startups, companies, and various establishments to indicate that their accounts can aid people looking for help. If the businesses enable the feature on Twitter’s Dashboard, then a user will see the words “Provides support” when they @mention them in a tweet or search for their username.
Businesses indicating that they provide support on their website can add business hours on their profiles as well. For instance, T-Mobile says it can attend to customers’ needs 24/7, notes Engadget. In addition, users will see a more visible Message button on the profiles of firms that can chat with them in private, which in turn could prevent customers from going nuclear on businesses in public.
