Micro-blogging site Twitter has finally caught up with rival networks Facebook and Instagram, giving users the ability to film, edit and share videos instantly within the native mobile app.
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Users can now also send private messages to up to 20 of their Twitter followers at once, regardless of whether they all follow each other. Previously users could only send a private message to one follower at a time.
Until now, video functionality on Twitter was only available to advertisers and public figures, or "influencers", who could upload videos up to 10 minutes in length and gain "rich analytics", Twitter product director Jinen Kamdar said.
"That's been really successful but now we have a mobile offering for every user of Twitter," Mr Kamdar told Fairfax Media. "We think this a profound change."
Mr Kamdar was keen to differentiate the new video function from Vine, a separate, six-second video looping app that Twitter snapped up in 2012.
"I think that their use case and camera is quite distinct and different from Twitter's," he said.
"Vine is really focused on the incredibly short form of six-second looping content and there is a robust set of camera tools for their creators. For us, our camera is really emphasising instant and quick sharing of 30-second videos."
Mr Kamdar said Twitter had no current plans to integrate Vine into the Twitter app.
"I think for sure right now it makes a lot of sense for these apps to remain separate," he said.
Users can currently cross-post Vines to both their Vine and Twitter accounts from within the Vine app.
For the moment, Twitter is rolling out video functionality to the Twitter iOS app in coming days, with Android coming "soon".
The group direct messaging function is available now.
As with Vine, to make a video on Twitter a user selects the video camera function, holds their thumb down to record and lifts it again to stop. This can be done multiple times to record separate shots. A simple drag and drop function within the app allows you to edit the order.
The camera can be flipped to backwards, commonly referred to as "selfie mode".
Twitter boasts several times the user base as Vine at 284 million monthly active users to Vine's 40 million-plus.
The addition of video to Twitter could have a profound effect on citizen movements, including political causes and citizen journalism, given the platform's ability to spread news quickly and publicly.
University of Canberra Associate Professor Lubna Alam, an expert in social media and crowdsourcing, said the video function gave Twitter more credibility as a breaking news platform.
"Now you can not only say what happened, you have proof or evidence of the incident and you can share it instantly," Dr Alam said.
Twitter goes to lengths to verify the accounts of many public figures and companies as being official, while professional journalists often embed tweets into news articles.
