X Adds React With Video Options To Boost Video Engagement
Another step in X's push to become a “video first” platform.
Tekef
X has added some new video features, as it continues to transform itself into a “video first” platform, or an “everything app”, or both. I don’t know, whatever it’s doing.
First off, X is rolling out a new “React with video” option for posts, which, as it sounds, enables you to post a video response to an X update.
As you can see in this example, shared by app researcher Radu Oncescu, you can now display a post over a video as a reply, which will make it easier to create reaction clips in-stream.
X began rolling this out to testers earlier this month, and it’s now being expanded to more users.
X is also working on a new video option that uses entity segmentation to overlay an isolated video of yourself on-screen.
As you can see in this example, the format is also aligned with reaction videos, using a regular post or image as a background for your clips.
It’s similar to TikTok’s green screen effect, but more specifically aligned to X, and more easily aligned into the X response process. Which could give users another, potentially more engaging way to react to posts, adding more context than regular text replies.
As noted, X has repeatedly claimed that it’s now a “video first” platform, and has been working to put more emphasis on video content. It added a dedicated video tab back in January, and has been looking to build out its original video content slate.
Though thus far, its video push hasn’t really made video the key focus of the app, so not sure what “video first” actually means in this context. I mean, the app doesn’t open to a video feed, so…
Either way, X says that video views in the app have increased 40% year-over-year, and it’s about to add text-to-video creation via its Grok chatbot too. So it clearly wants to get more people posting more video content, and maybe, by making video responses easy to create, it’ll be able to boost video-based interactions to be more in line with text replies.
That still feels like a huge habitual shift, and I don’t see most X users migrating to a video first approach. But maybe, if X can get it right, it can increase user engagement and time spent by enabling more video interaction.
The new features are being tested with selected users, with “React with video” now available to a broader pool of X users.
