Twitter Is Going To Have A Lot More Video (And Video Ads)

Twitter has hired Baljeet Singh away from YouTube as the social media company’s shiny new Head of TV and Video. In his new role, Singh will be responsible for bringing more television networks and properties on board to Twitter’s Amplify program, encouraging broadcast networks and other entities already on the program to use it more frequently, and make it easier for Twitter’s 241 million monthly active users to find and view in-stream videos from the desktop or mobile devices.

“There’s all this tremendous conversation that happens around TV content and online content — and all that conversation is happening on Twitter,” said Singh in an interview with The Verge. He’s obviously right, too. Back in August 2013, Nielsen released a study that concluded Twitter impacts the ratings on at least 29% of the TV programs the company measures. That percentage has presumably increased in the month’s since, especially when you consider the internet’s reception to the Oscar Selfie

Sing came to YouTube by way of Google’s finalized acquisition of DoubleClick back in 2008 and had most recently served as Global Head of Partnerships in the Education and Family verticals. Earlier in his stint at the world’s largest video sharing site, Sing was a Product Manager and Product Director, helping to develop AdWords for Video and TrueView, YouTube’s now ubiquitous skippable ad format.

Twitter reported a net loss in 2013 of $645 million as part of its first ever earnings report filed in February 2014. Judging by Singh’s track record, he should be able to help push that number more towards the black.

Great TV photo by Sarah Reid.