【Girlfriend Who is Crazy About Big Things】

Twitter TV—it's here,Girlfriend Who is Crazy About Big Things sort of.

The world's most stressful social network has signed a flurry of deals for live video in recent months, bringing original content from major media companies and professional sports leagues.

Not that you could find it.

Twitter's recent foray into live video has resulted in plenty of content and impressive partners, but same old Twitter—questionable execution and general confusion.

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Major League Baseball is just one of many major media partners now making high-quality live video for Twitter. There's already live games weekly on Twitter, but now there's also an original show, The Dugout. It's a 3-hour weekly program where MLB broadcasters, reporters, and analysts discuss game highlights and other topics of the league.

"We view Twitter more as a broadcast medium rather than social media. People go on there to see what’s happening," said Kenny Gersh, MLBAM’s EVP for business. "As they move from just reading a 140-character tweet to video, we want them to view baseball."

Finding that video, however, has been a bit of a problem. Twitter is clearly making video—particularly live video—a big part of its future, but what that future looks like remains entirely unclear. The company now boasts dozens of partners from all strata of media making original content for its 328 million monthly active users.

Yet, its video experience is still nascent. It's unclear why Twitter doesn't have a landing page for live video or any real way to easily access its growing list of shows. Twitter does have an official account, @TwitterLive, that shares what's on now, and partners can obviously promote their own shows. Fans of shows can turn on mobile notifications for tweets with live videos or simply try to remember when their shows are on.

Still, there's clearly plenty left for Twitter to figure out. The company grew up as a place for 140-character bursts. Now, it's moving to fundamentally change its business while keeping the feverish topicality that has given it outsized influence in news and media compared to far bigger tech companies.

SEE ALSO: Publishers put down pitchforks for Facebook, proceed into original video with caution

Baseball isn't the only sports league playing with more videos on Twitter. The NFL Network also hosts a 30-minute show called #NFLBlitz covering breaking news and game highlights. The NBA had two shows last year called The WarmUpand The Starters.

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Twitter is finding support for news channels as well. Bloombergsimulcasts three news programs a day, and Cheddar, a more millennial-friendly CNBC, streams its show for several hours a day.

As of Monday, Twitter now has its own morning talk show. The one-hour show called AM to DMis hosted by BuzzFeed and is planned to feature breaking news and guests. It's kind of like Kathie Lee and Hodaexcept with two male anchors, less wine, and more newsworthy items.

At the show's premiere, BuzzFeedEditor-in-Chief Ben Smith shared his team's new report that Breitbart boss and former aide to President Trump Steve Bannon wanted to "plant a mole inside Facebook."

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Unlike Facebook with Watch, Twitter is not cutting a bunch of checks for its exclusive live video series. Twitter and its partners split the revenue from mid-roll ads. Twitter helped secure ad commitments for all 16 of its shows announced earlier this year, Recodereported. That's great news for Twitter and for partners like BuzzFeedthat can then experiment with new projects without the fear of losing an insane amount of money.

The partnership "made sense to us because we wanted to try to experiment with this idea of creating a morning show that addressed the needs of people who don’t necessarily watch morning shows, who don’t need headlines read to them because they’re already looking at them," said Shani Hilton, head of U.S. news for BuzzFeed.

This recent push for live video on Twitter comes after years of the company struggling to market itself as something worthwhile for the average internet user. Video that people cannot get anywhere is surely one way to do so.

And yet, Twitter isn't showing it off. Some shows are featured on Twitter's homepage on desktop or in the Explore tab on mobile, but there's no one-stop location for what's live and what's scheduled.

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That's quite unlike Facebook's new original video initiative Watch. Partners' shows are featured in a new video tab on the website and on the mobile app.

Some people are finding the videos, at least. MLB declined to reveal specific viewership but said: "It's been OK. We've been really happy with it."

The MLB agreed to extendThe Dugoutthrough the post-season and plans for another season next year. Gersh also said they will continue to evaluate other platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon for potential other deals.

For TV networks, using Twitter comes down to promotion. “With so much competition out there, it’s more important than ever to create innovative ways to promote our shows and connect directly to our viewers,” Shannon Ryan, chief marketing officer of Fox Television Group, said in a statement.

Of course, Twitter has its own competition among the other social networks. Still, there's hope in the eyes of partners that Twitter has a certain uniqueness related to its fast-paced nature, according to MLBAM's Gersh.

"Facebook has the comments, but people on Twitter always feel like they can talk directly to the person on the other end whether it’s the app or the original programming," Gersh said. "There’s more of an intimacy on Twitter."

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