Twitter has been growing ever since it launched back in 2007 (hard to believe it’s now 8 years old, right?), however recently their user-base has stagnated. And the company has needed to find a way to get more users into the service, and get their current users using the service a bit more. Well here is one way that the company is attempting to do that. It’s a new feature that is rolling out today to Android, iOS and Web apps. It’s called Moments.
For the most part, this feature is pretty self-explanatory. It’s essentially another timeline within your timeline, where you can keep up with different activities. So Twitter has a tab in here for Today, News, Sports, Entertainment, and Fun. It’s a bit like Snapchat’s Stories feature that was announced a few months back. So under Sports, for instance, the first story is about the Seahawks holding off the Lions last night on Monday Night Football. So there is a GIF showing the Seahawks running out onto the field, and this Vine is from ESPN’s Monday Night Football account. Swipe over and you’ll see more pictures, Vines, videos and other visual tweets related to the game. Now these tweets come from, mostly, Verified accounts. So in this case, we’re looking at tweets from the Lions accounts, Seahawks, NFL, ESPN and also some analysts that covered the game. From each tweet, you can choose to Retweet, Favorite, or even follow the user. It’s a great way to find new users to follow as well.
So now with Moments, Twitter is hoping to become your news app. Instead of downloading another app like CNN, or CNBC, or Feedly for your news. Twitter wants you to get everything from them. And also integrating one of their other properties, Vine, into Moments, it should really help bring in more users and keep the current users coming back and using the service even more. Moments is rolling out today to Android and iOS as well as the desktop. Obviously, you’ll need the official apps from Twitter, as this will not work in third-party apps, at least not yet.