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Twitter is going to start making some money from Periscope, its livestreaming video service.
The company announced on Tuesday that it will begin selling pre-roll video ads to run ahead of some Periscope content, which means users will have to sit through a short commercial before they can watch the live video.
Ads will also run before Periscope videos that are no longer live but still on Twitter. Twitter has experimented with this kind of ad before, but now they're available to run before videos from a bunch of publishers and high-profile creators.
The ads are powered by Amplify, Twitter’s existing pre-roll video ad product, which the company uses to run short commercials ahead of popular video, like NFL or NBA highlights. In those cases, the content creators get roughly 70 percent of the ad revenue, and Twitter keeps 30 percent. A company spokesperson says these ad splits are “similar” to the existing Amplify deals.
Amplify video ads have been a big part of Twitter’s media and advertising push since layoffs and a restructuring of its sales team last fall. Video ads in general tend to be more lucrative than static ads, and other services like Facebook and Snapchat are also competing for video ad dollars.
Twitter is in need of an advertising boost. It missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates last quarter, and more video ads could help. It’s unclear, though, how much Periscope content there will be to actually monetize. Periscope says that its users created 200 million broadcasts in its first year, but these ads will only run in front of videos from its existing Amplify partners. So not all Periscope video will be eligible for advertisements.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
