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“What it tells me is that Twitter is going to be a player in video distribution,” said Erik Flannigan, executive VP of multiplatform strategy and development at Viacom Entertainment Group

For Twitter, the advertising opportunity has come in an area that skeptics early on thought was inviolate territory: inside the stream of tweets from each user’s followers.

While Twitter has always been an effective springboard for TV, the platform previously strictly sent users to the TV set or to a link in another browser or app via retweet. That changed in June 2012, with the introduction of Twitter Cards, which essentially expanded a space once restricted to 140 characters to accommodate anything from a still photo to a video player — all without leaving Twitter.

For Twitter, Cards also paved the way for Amplify. Twitter first tested the initiative with ESPN last December during telecasts of BCS college football games. Thirty-second game highlights were targeted at sports fans in the Twittersphere just moments after they occurred in real time as a means of drawing more viewers from that segment of the audience most interested in the content, as well as to retain those already watching.

Twitter began bringing together other networks and advertisers for Amplify campaigns, including Turner Broadcasting with AT&T and Coke Zero for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament; and with Sprint, Taco Bell and Sony Pictures for NBA postseason games.

To wit, BBC America used Amplify for the season premiere of “Top Gear,” seeding Twitter with all sorts of video extras synched to the show’s airing but not available in the broadcast itself.

Having introduced TV Ad Targeting in beta mode in May, last week Twitter touted engagement metrics that should help encourage more advertisers to sign on. Among the first brands to experiment included Jaguar, Samsung and Holiday Inn.

Video can be intertwined with photos and text. It’s not entirely different from the model of so-called alternative reality games, but it is rooted on the social network instead of an array of websites. “I call it ‘disembodied media,’ ” said Mark Ghuneim, founder and CEO of social media tracking service Trendrr. “It’s a disembodied TV show taking place in disparate parts, times, and sources. It’s crazy in a great way.”

Interactive or participatory TV has been on the margins of the business for so long that it seems like it’s never going to happen. But Twitter may be just the soil where a long-delayed germination could actually take root. Let’s not forget that the average member of any audience has a device in their pocket capable of transmitting quality video — how can that not disrupt the traditional understanding of what programming is?