Twitter announced today that it is shutting down its apps for Android TV, Roku and Xbox platforms. Which means you’ll no longer be able to watch live streams on your TVs. Twitter had initially debuted these TV-focused apps so that users could watch live streams like the Presidential Debates, Sporting events and other streams, on their TV, instead of being stuck with just using their smartphone or desktop. But it appears that Twitter wasn’t gaining enough users from these platforms and have decided to shut them down. Twitter is shutting them down rather quickly too, with them sunsetting on May 24, this coming Thursday.
Shutting down these three apps aren’t really going to affect many users, seeing as these were really only used for watching live streams on Twitter’s service, but it is a bit unfortunate that the company is shutting them down right now. As it appears that Twitter has also slowed down on the amount of content it is live streaming on the service. Twitter had been gaining rights to different events to stream on its website, in an effort to get more people to stick with their service, and spend more time on the service. As spending more time on Twitter means that users will likely interact more and also see more ads, which means more revenue for the service. So it was a win-win for Twitter, but the company is also facing steep competition from the likes of Facebook, Amazon and others – who all have deeper pockets than Twitter right now.
Twitter notes in its tweet that users can still head to twitter.com to use the service on these TV devices. Obviously that’s not going to have the same experience as a dedicated app, but it does work. So if you one that watches some live streams on Twitter’s service and want to do it through your big screen, that’s the way to do it, after Thursday, May 24.