Move over, Trending Topics, and make way for “Moments” from Twitter. For now, this new feature is all being curated by Twitter and a few media partners, but in the future will be available for anyone to create. Of potential great use to direct sellers, this feature could help promote annual conventions and industry conferences, where some have begun dabbling. According to an article from Wired …
“Codenamed Project Lightning, this project was an attempt at making Twitter easier to understand, especially if you’re not a power user, or new to the platform entirely. “When you jump into Twitter,” says Madhu Muthukumar, a product manager at Twitter, “things are already mid-stream. Because you’re not on Twitter most of the day. So, when you get there, the odds that something started the second you got there is low.” Internally, they thought providing a better sense of context and history might go a long way toward getting people up to speed.
Right after they got a prototype running, a story began to unfold. A confusing story. Happening almost entirely on Twitter, with huge ramifications for a thing—NBA basketball—a lot of people care about. It started with Chandler Parsons tweeting an airplane emoji, just as members of the LA Clippers began to track down All-Star center DeAndre Jordan, barricading themselves in his house until he agreed to remain with his current team. All the public saw was a bunch of emoji, and the picture Paul Pierce tweeted because apparently Paul Pierce has never used a smartphone. The tweets were later rounded up and shared on every sports site and TV show on the planet, but Muthukumar and his team saw the story unfolding differently.
They were looking at Moments, the official name for what came of Project Lightning. Coming to Twitter users in the US beginning today and around the world soon, Moments are, as Muthukumar says, “just tweets in a row.” They’re curated collections of tweets, images, videos, anything you can find on Twitter today. Everything is full screen, with big images and video. Moments have beginnings and endings and can change and evolve over time. Mechanically, they feel a lot like Snapchat Discover, except you follow stories instead of brands. Moments are a respite for people who’d otherwise waste time furiously refreshing their timeline, and far more importantly, they’re a way to use Twitter for people who don’t get Twitter at all.”
To continue reading the full article from Wired, click here.