Twitter Card Not Displaying Video Thumbnail

[Doralig]

I am having the same issue with my player cards. The info does not appear expanded when a video card is posted, but when tested it does.

[andypiper]

This is the expected behaviour - you need to click view media to see the card content.

[Doralig]

Is there a way to default to always expanded @andypiper?

[andypiper]

No, I’m afraid that is not how Cards work.

[Doralig]

@andypiper any other way to have media content showing expanded in feeds that is not cards? Editors reported that originally you could see the video expanded and were wondering what brought on the change.

[andypiper]

You can either use a Card and then promote the Tweet via the Ads platform; attach a photo or video to the Tweet natively inside the Twitter apps; or use one of the link types that gets rendered as a player (YouTube is one of them I think).

[Doralig]

a twitter:image value is provider, as well as a twitter:player. Is there something we’re missing? The cards were working properly until very recently (appearing expanded).

[testingonetwo12]

I also noticed this behaviour seems to have changed. Until recently, I observed there was no ‘View Media’ required and Twitter cards were expanded as mentioned by Doralig

[Doralig]

@andypiper can you confirm the behavior was a recent change on your side? thanks!

[himanshur9]

Hi This seem to have changed recently.
over a year or so agi we had to click “view media” on desktop.
However later it changed and they were expanded out by default which is good and better user experience.
An avg. user will only play the video if they see a thumbnail with play button and not hunt for the view media and do additional clicks to play video.
Now for last month or so it seem to have reverted back to the old behavior.

[deanswaydesign]

@andypiper - can you provide some background and rationale for this change?

Previously we were able to promote our service using a Player card and this worked great and added value for our users (who are also your users!). Now, with the video hidden behind an inconspicuous “view media” link button, our views have gone through the floor.

Your comment that sites like YouTube get rendered inline (as used to be the case for everyone) creates a two-tier system whereby smaller businesses are effective penalised for trying to innovate for themselves - instead of being able to use what was a fantastic platform to promote their products and services.

While I can see how to attach an image through the desktop site, can it really be true that I can only attach videos through a mobile app? This seems to be a strange decision. There’s also the fact that the t.co player isn’t as customised as ours which again decreases the value proposition.

All in all, I am very disappointed with this change to what used to be a very good service.

Regards,

EDIT: Your card validator appears to require SSLv3 and/or RC4 encryption, meaning I had to downgrade my SSL config to test this stuff out. Considering the current climate, perhaps an upgrade is in order!

[deanswaydesign]

This feature appears to have been removed - tested on iOS, Windows 8.1 and Android. The Android app seems to include a video sharing intent (Twitter appears in the “share using” menu in the media player), however the Twitter app then shows “Unable to load image” when it reaches the compose tweet activity.

This leaves us with no option but to use services like YouTube to get the functionality back. I would really appreciate knowing the reason for this change! Oh, and a list of these “super-white-listed” services would be helpful for your developer community, as would some heads-up or info on these changes, along with a more honest “preview” in your validator.

[jbulava]

Hi all,

There has been no behavioral change to how Player Cards appear in a timeline. The “view media” link on web and the play button indicator on mobile have always been the way to identify and view the contents of a Player Card. This is even true for YouTube on web and mobile as seen below. There are no super-white-listed services other than Twitter owned and operated products (e.g. native photo upload, native video upload, Vines, Periscopes, promoted content, etc).

That being said, we have run experiments with subsets of users to see how media forward content, other than our own, is received when displayed in the timeline. We certainly see the value of media forward for developers.

Concerning the Cards Validator, it allows developers to see what their content will look like after a Tweet has been expanded. I will admit this is not clear and can easily be construed as how a Card will appear within a timeline. I will pass this feedback along to the Cards engineering team to address the ambiguity. Perhaps a duel preview; “here it is in a timeline” and “here it is when expanded.” If you have further feedback along these lines, please let us know.

@deanswaydesign, you are correct that at the moment attaching a video via the web is not available. While prioritizing the features related to video upload, mobile upload took top precedence as the majority of our users are on mobile and take videos on their mobile devices. That was followed by adding video upload capabilities to the media/upload endpoint for developers to include videos within their applications. Upload on web would be a logical next step.

The SSLv3 and RC4 requirements mentioned are beyond my technical knowledge of the Validator backend, so I will create a ticket for the engineering team for this feedback.

If anyone has further questions, please let me know.

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As referenced above, YouTube Tweets on the web:

YouTube Tweets on mobile:

[andypiper]

Thanks @jbulava for clarifications here … and apologies to all for any confusion my previous post may have caused

[deanswaydesign]

There has been no behavioral change to how Player Cards appear in a timeline.

Sorry, this is simply incorrect. Whereas before I was able to present a video in a player card with the video thumbnail appearing (as in the validator tool), now I get a “view media” link. Ergo, something, somewhere has changed.

The “view media” link on web and the play button indicator on mobile have always been the way to identify and view the contents of a Player Card. This is even true for YouTube on web and mobile as seen below. There are no super-white-listed services other than Twitter owned and operated products (e.g. native photo upload, native video upload, Vines, Periscopes, promoted content, etc).

While I understand that these cues exist, and what their purpose is, on the web the entire card is hidden until the (very small) view media link button is clicked. Additionally @andypiper appeared to suggest that some sites were able to take advantage of automatically expanded cards in a previous reply.

That being said, we have run experiments with subsets of users to see how media forward content, other than our own, is received when displayed in the timeline. We certainly see the value of media forward for developers.

So the previous behaviour was an “experiment”? If so then please accept my vote for this feature to make the primetime!

Concerning the Cards Validator, it allows developers to see what their content will look like after a Tweet has been expanded. I will admit this is not clear and can easily be construed as how a Card will appear within a timeline. I will pass this feedback along to the Cards engineering team to address the ambiguity. Perhaps a duel preview; “here it is in a timeline” and “here it is when expanded.” If you have further feedback along these lines, please let us know.

That would be very helpful!

@deanswaydesign, you are correct that at the moment attaching a video via the web is not available. While prioritizing the features related to video upload, mobile upload took top precedence as the majority of our users are on mobile and take videos on their mobile devices. That was followed by adding video upload capabilities to the media/upload endpoint for developers to include videos within their applications. Upload on web would be a logical next step.

At the present time, on web, iOS, Windows 8.1 and Android, I am singularly unable to upload a video file of any sort. It will allow me to upload captured video from the camera device (except on Windows 8.1 where absolutely no video appears supported). Is this a design limitation of the apps that is perhaps likely to be addressed?

The SSLv3 and RC4 requirements mentioned are beyond my technical knowledge of the Validator backend, so I will create a ticket for the engineering team for this feedback.

Good plan, since in one of @andypiper’s replies to another query he specifically suggested disabling these things!

Thanks for your prompt response.

[jbulava]

Sorry, this is simply incorrect. Whereas before I was able to present a video in a player card with the video thumbnail appearing (as in the validator tool), now I get a “view media” link. Ergo, something, somewhere has changed.

Media forward has not been available for Player Cards unless promoted so it’s odd to hear that you have seen this behavior. More importantly, it’s unfortunate to hear this came across as expected and for some reason removed rather than never really existing. Did you notice this media forward experience in a specific context (e.g. home timeline, your profile timeline, search timeline, etc)? I would love to pinpoint where/how you had media forward Player Cards to investigate further.

While I understand that these cues exist, and what their purpose is, on the web the entire card is hidden until the (very small) view media link button is clicked. Additionally @andypiper appeared to suggest that some sites were able to take advantage of automatically expanded cards in a previous reply.

That is currently the intended behavior; users must click “view media” to see any Player Card. When we launched the new profile design, YouTube Player Cards were media forward on web and I believe that is what Andy is referring to. To my knowledge, this was an experiment by the Cards team, although I’m not familiar with the length of that campaign.

So the previous behaviour was an “experiment”? If so then please accept my vote for this feature to make the primetime!

Consider your vote counted, we’ve gotten a lot of them

At the present time, on web, iOS, Windows 8.1 and Android, I am singularly unable to upload a video file of any sort. It will allow me to upload captured video from the camera device (except on Windows 8.1 where absolutely no video appears supported). Is this a design limitation of the apps that is perhaps likely to be addressed?

It is not a design limitation, but rather progress toward multiple ways to get your content on our platform. At this time, camera roll upload is available on mobile and video file upload is only available via the REST API. The Media Platform team is actively working to improve upon these features for consumers, developers, and content creators.

[deanswaydesign]

Media forward has not been available for Player Cards unless promoted so it’s odd to hear that you have seen this behavior. More importantly, it’s unfortunate to hear this came across as expected and for some reason removed rather than never really existing. Did you notice this media forward experience in a specific context (e.g. home timeline, your profile timeline, search timeline, etc)? I would love to pinpoint where/how you had media forward Player Cards to investigate further.

Thanks for the clarification - the fact remains that (unless I’ve been hallucinating wildly) we got the described behaviour until around a month ago. For example, when originally created and tweeted, the url https://clipsfatale.com/c/clipprom.html exhibited the described behaviour (with no “view media” button).

That is currently the intended behavior; users must click “view media” to see any Player Card. When we launched the new profile design, YouTube Player Cards were media forward on web and I believe that is what Andy is referring to. To my knowledge, this was an experiment by the Cards team, although I’m not familiar with the length of that campaign.

Again, I can only reiterate that when we first began using the player cards, they were rendered as media forward and that this behaviour continued until around a month ago.

Consider your vote counted, we’ve gotten a lot of them

I bet. The difference between a “view media” and seeing your video in the timeline is the difference between a curiosity and a killer app.

It is not a design limitation, but rather progress toward multiple ways to get your content on our platform. At this time, camera roll upload is available on mobile and video file upload is only available via the REST API. The Media Platform team is actively working to improve upon these features for consumers, developers, and content creators.

Thing is, at least on an Android device, the difference between “camera roll” and “video file” is non-existent. However, the media picker on every device I’ve tried doesn’t even list videos from the camera roll - only photos are presented. The only way to get video to upload is to take it at the time you tweet which does seem a little limiting. I accept that this is all work-in-progress, however I can’t imagine (at least in the case of Android) that it will be overly difficult to address.

In the meantime, do you have any suggestions as to how we might be able to return to the previously observed behaviour? Are there any Twitter services that we can use? I know about Vine, however we (generally) don’t want autoplaying video (personally I consider it rude to autoplay) and we very often want more than 7 seconds…

The only avenue I can see that has potential is to use animated GIF - with all the quality and sound loss that will bring!

I look forward to hearing from you.

[TVBHwrites]

I agree with deanswaydesign and disagree with jbulava:
jbulava: "There has been no behavioral change to how Player Cards appear in a timeline."
deanswaydesign: “Sorry, this is simply incorrect. Whereas before I was able to present a video in a player card with the video thumbnail appearing… now I get a “view media” link. Ergo, something, somewhere has changed.”

[wwwAndreaMorris]

Hello, just wanted to add my enthusiastic vote for a media-forward option for youtube videos. The “view media” button really impedes engagement. It’s much more compelling to have the video show up in the feed with a play button (or even autoplay but on mute like Facebook).

Thanks. I super hope this happens.

[flycantbird]

I want to share that I’ve had the same experience of Twitter player cards initially displaying “media forward” without requiring viewers to click on “View Media.” It’s part of the reason we implemented player cards on our site. Now, all that folks see is the url with the “View Media” link. Very disappointing and definitely a change in behavior.

As evidence, a ticket that I opened in May 2015 dealing with the placeholder image not displaying correctly: Player card black background placeholder image. “Came in this morning, opened up the timeline, and an image that was working successfully yesterday had broken to display a black placeholder image.”