Twitter’s much vaunted ‘Project Lightning’ has finally been released into the wild – well, the US for now – as Moments becomes available.
Just a day after announcing, rather unsurprisingly, that Jack Dorsey is its new fully-fledged CEO, Twitter has finally brought its major project on stream.
Moments essentially grabs the day’s most talked about stories into a magazine view in a new section of the app, which could appeal to people wary of the noisy, breathless conveyor belt of information that streams down their phone when trying to monitor the news.
Sadly though, and surprisingly, too, Moments isn’t available in Europe yet. Considering the global nature of the company, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth for users outside the US.
But don’t worry, people in the US can still discover links on Moments and their subsequent Tweets will be available for all to see.
Think of it as a social media hand-me-down.
Who doesn’t like hand-me-downs?
How Twitter Moments looks… in the US
Incorporating a news angle into Twitter has become a major project now that more and more people rely on social media for news.
Actually, the US is a hotbed for this shift, with a recent report showing that 63pc of both Twitter and Facebook users are now reading the news from their feeds.
It doesn’t reflect a rise in people using social media, but rather a rise in those already using social media. This means that both Twitter and Facebook are providing more and more appealing ways to stay on their platforms.
Facebook has already launched its Instant Articles service, allowing publishers to post stories directly onto its site — including interactive features like videos and maps — without users having to leave the social media platform.
Twitter’s rival for instant social media interaction recently hit the landmark 1bn users in one day mark, with its service actually overtaking Google as a news driver.
So Moments is Twitter’s response. We won’t know how good it is until we can mess around with it here in Ireland, though.
Come on Twitter, help us out here.
New! Find the best of Twitter in an instant with Moments: https://t.co/QAKGUSVBbT pic.twitter.com/KAjfkysVKC
— Twitter (@twitter) October 6, 2015
