In an increasingly digital world inundated with content, social networks are battling to stand out against the noise. Video has emerged as a medium that works, with major players like Facebook and Twitter dipping its toes into live streaming.
Today, Tumblr announced that the company will adopt video capabilities into its blogging platform, allowing users to broadcast directly to their follower’s dashboards.
Tumblr is partnering with YouNow, Kanvas, Upclose and YouTube to help users upload or reblog videos as they would with any other post. The platform will notify users when the individuals they follow go live, pinning videos to the top of their Dashboard feeds. Finished broadcasts will remain as video posts on a user’s Tumblr blog.
Tumblr is kicking off its entry into video by partnering with a number of publishers, including The Huffington Post, Mashable, Refinery 29 and MTV. These publishers will create videos (using YouTube, YouNow, Kanvas or Upclose) and in turn, those videos will receive promotion on Tumblr.
Instead of building its own video apps, the company is tapping external partners for video creation, meaning users won’t be able to natively make videos within Tumblr’s apps. The aim is for Tumblr to become a home for live video, versus just another live-streaming platform.
While Tumblr’s multimedia platform currently allows users to blog in text, photo, GIFs and audio clips, video is a natural next step for the company.
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