Twitter Really Wants To Become A News Platform

With its lagging user growth and constant issues with trolls, Twitter really needs a big win to take its business to the next level, or at least avoid becoming irrelevant. It seems one of the ways it’s trying to do this is by filling the gap that Facebook has left open after it announced the de-prioritization of news. The microblogging platform is currently experimenting with curating news articles for better delivery.

Applying new algorithms specifically intended for curating news that will be placed at the top of the timelines of users, the items that will be featured are meant to be Breaking News material. At least, this is what Keith Coleman, the VP of product at Twitter told BuzzFeed News.

“People come to Twitter to see and talk about what's happening. We're working on ways to make it easier for everyone to find relevant news and the surrounding conversation so they can stay informed about what matters to them,” Coleman said in a statement.

The social media site recently conducted a test to see how effective the new arrangement would be, featuring Tweets of news articles or just the breaking headlines themselves making it to the top of users’ timelines. The process was done with the involvement of humans in order to make sure that everything went well, but it could become completely algorithmic going forward.

As MacRumors notes, the feature seems to be visible only to a small number of iOS and Android device owners. Aside from putting Breaking News front and center on the platform, Twitter is also testing out a new “camera-first” feature that is clearly based on Snapchat’s own system.

The new feature is intended to attract more advertisers, with ads being inserted into Tweets of photos, videos, and posts about momentous events. At this point, these new features are just in their test phase, so it’s best not to expect them to become widely available anytime soon.