UPDATED 00:45 EDT / OCTOBER 07 2015

NEWS

Twitter launches new curated news service called Moments

Twitter, Inc. has entered the curated content market with the launch of a new feature called Moments.

Previously known internally as Project Lightning, Twitter Moments presents the “best of what’s happening on Twitter in an instant” based on how popular the content is, and how much Twitter’s human curators think you might like to see it.

Coverage can include everything from conversations between world leaders and celebrities, citizens reporting on current events, cultural memes, sports commentary and more.

Accessible by a new lightning menu option at Twitter.com, as well as via the iOS and Android apps, content in Moments is presented full screen in a similar fashion to Snapchat, Inc.’s Discover service, complete with the ability for users to flick through the content presented by swiping at the screen.

Users are able to engage with a “moment” by clicking on it for more information, and once in, a swipe leads to further images, videos, Vines, and GIFs.

Naturally Twitter want’s users to share the moment, with a single moment having the option of favoriting and retweeting via a single tap within the story; during the engagement with a moment a progress bar is said to sit at the bottom so users know how much more of the moment is left to view.

Not happy with a moment? In Tinder-like functionality, users swipe up to dismiss a moment and to get to the next one.

Updates while a user in is a moment are indicated via a blue dot appearing on the screen indicating that there is new content, which Twitter claims is vital when following something such as a live sporting event.

Yawn

Given their problematic user growth and reflected stock price, it’s understandable that Twitter has to do something to turn things around, and experimenting with new products is one way to do so.

The problem is though we’ve seen this sort of product before: think Flipboard or Snapchat Discover, and the thing is neither of those two services have taken off or been wildly successful.

Twitter does have the advantage of being able to tap into unique content being shared by celebrities, politicians, sports stars and more so perhaps the mix may offer something new, but on paper it certainly doesn’t sound exciting.

Moments is allegedly available on Twitter now, however as Twitter itself makes no mention of it, it may be restricted to the United States at launch because it’s not appearing on Twitter.com, or the Android app in Asia at the time of writing.

Image credit: Twitter

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU