It's a real issue for Twitter but it's also an issue for a lot of online publishers - monetising Video, which is the biggest growth in advertising inventory.
When you share video on your site, exactly as Twitter allows you to do, those videos need to contain some form of advertising in order for the site owner to make money. If you control the video, you control the advertising. But if you don't control it, because you're linking it, you get nothing. Nada.
Whether it's a sponsored sting, or a sponsored mention in-video or a pre-roll....whatever, but if you're embedding someone else's video (like YouTube or Vimeo) you're giving them the Ad money instead. And it's so easily fixed.
When you think of the huge Twitter video sharing audience every day, it's pretty shocking that they are not making any money from it. And particularly after their IPO where they need to start reversing losses and turn profits.
Cisco forecasts that the video audience will grow to over 13 billion views by 2016 - we know it's huge - and that's a lot of eyeballs, a lot of advertising.
Video advertising is probably becoming the key way to generate Ad money and yet Twitter and publishers, aren't doing it? They hand that money to YouTube - so Twitter is generating cash for YouTube. Mad?
Vine, which Twitter owns, doesn't sell advertising so there's no way Twitter can make money on the explosion of Video. Equally too, online publishers who are linking to video sharing sites, such as YouTube, are doing the same - handing over advertising dollars, pounds and euros to someone else who is monetising that audience in turn.
The cost of hosting video and having your own player is tiny. Not only that, but there are deals out there to allow you to provide a player for free and split the revenue. If Twitter did that today, it would generate millions in advertising, today.
Equally any online publishers, starved for cash, can do the same. By uploading their own video, rather than linking it, they can turn those viewers into advertising money. Perhaps develop sponsored video sections nevermind pure in-video advertising. Advertisers want it too.
A publisher should be putting up all Video it can and there's enough brand/corporate/PR video out there to do so now. In fact, those PR/Brand companies WANT it seen so they provide it for free.
It's an easy trick, easy to fix that even Twitter is missing.
Are you?
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