Twitter is widening its streaming video campaign to Roku devices, one of the most-used boxes for watching online video on TVs. The expansion comes the same week Twitter unveiled a dozen partnerships with programmers, like a 24-hour news stream from Bloomberg, in a big video push. Twitter is joining a scrum of digital companies -- Facebook and Google's YouTube chief among them -- elbowing one another to be first in line as advertisers move their TV commercial budgets to digital formats. Twitter is also betting that live TV will help draw more people to its service, after two years of flagging momentum. Compared with rival streaming-TV boxes, Roku is the most pervasive in US households and tends to be one of the main ways people stream long-form TV from services like Netflix and Hulu, according to research firm Nielsen. That tendency to heavy usage sometimes causes new streaming video providers to hold off on supporting Roku till they're sure they can handle the load. Twitter already had an app to stream video for Apple TV and Amazon's Fire TV devices.
Twitter will broaden its streaming video service to Roku devices in a bid to draw users and advertisers with video after two years of flagging growth. The company said it would offer the new service, called “Netflix for TV,” on Roku. Twitter's announcement comes in the same week that the company said it will offer a 24-hour news stream from Bloomberg on its platform.