Since its launch in 2006, journalists have utilised Twitter as a source of discovering and distributing news, adopting various techniques to workaround the distinctive 140-character posts. Using the platform for this purpose has been somewhat limited to only the savviest Twitter loyalists – until today (15 Dec).
As of this morning, UK Twitter users can discover Moments, a breaking news focused feature. It was first debuted in the US in October, followed by Brazil, making the UK market the first in its European expansion.
The tool is intended to change how users experience the social media platform – turning the casual tweeters into the newsroom experts (boosting Twitter engagement in the process). The addition of the Moments lightening bolt, placed unavoidably at the centre of the mobile app and website, effectively means users no longer have to search hashtags or follow thousands of accounts to discover breaking news and hot topics.
The UK feature is curated by an internal team of journalists from Twitter and several media partners, such as Sky Sports, Glamour Magazine, Vice and BuzzFeed. The clever blend of tweets, links and images are categorised by tabs to make discovering news even easier.
As a new blogger with a passion for news and journalism, Moments is particularly exciting to me – but the best bit is that you don’t have to be a budding journalism blogger to benefit. In fact, it’s the casual Twitter users who are targeted, as it delivers easily-accessible newsy content.
Andrew Fitzgerald, director of curation at Twitter, told Poynter:
“For those of us who are heavy users of Twitter — employees of the company, journalists, politicians, celebrities — we all know it takes a lot of work to curate the perfect home timeline. And what we’re hoping to do with Twitter Moments is make that process a little easier for everyone.”
Although the debut of Moments may not be a ground-breaking service for those Twitter power users, it is undeniably a useful and much anticipated tool for everyone else. It remains to be a big moment for journalism, as Twitter becomes the latest social media platform to put news at the core of its advances.
Developing a tool such as Moments places Twitter firmly on the map for journalists and general users as both a destination for news and a distributor of news.
(You can find an update on my experience with Twitter Moments here)
Header image is labeled for reuse, you can find it here.
Maisie Olsen 
5 thoughts on “Big Moment for Twitter: news feature launched in the UK.”