Twitter is making sweeping new changes to allow users to participate more actively during live events and breaking news. It’s part of the company’s longstanding efforts to be the central source of discussion around hot topics, especially as it is happening. And we have seen such active discussion can actually have a huge impact on everyday life.
Timeline + Notifications
First step is to let users know what’s happening, so they can check out the issues or stories closest to their hearts. Twitter will soon alert you of live events and personalized news at the top of your timeline. This initiative started with live sports scores and updates last year and is now expanding to other categories.
The new cards at the top of your timeline will show you relevant tweets and videos, and send push notifications for events based on your interests. This will hopefully encourage you to explore these topics and tweets around them.
Twitter says that you will be able to tweak the settings to block recommended news in both your notifications and timeline.
Updated Explore Feed
The ever-changing Explore feed tab has bagged another design refresh and brings along a ton of new features. Just like Instagram has updated its Explore feed with interest-based discovery, Twitter will now also show dedicated tabs such as Trending, a personalized “For You” tab, and tabs for content like News and Sports at the top of the Explore feed.
These will be based on your interest, so the topics could vary from sports, politics, pride and more. And as you see above, the search results will also see a redesign and show topic-based cards at the very top.
Moments
Twitter Moments may appear like a stale part of the experience with all of the upcoming changes, but they’re here to stay. The company might not show Moments front and center on the ‘Explore’ tab but they’ll surely stick around with a minor upgrade in functionality.
Twitter says that you may also live stream of events in this section as well, so stay tuned for some exciting content, if you ever visit the tab.
The horizontal swipes in Moments are being replaced with a more natural vertical scrolling navigation. Twitter will now show you multiple timelines in Moments, one called Recap (with the best tweets) and other will all the latest tweets about that topic.
2018 FIFA World Cup Features
Twitter appears to have timed its major revamp quite perfectly with the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It plans to offer a customized version of its new Moments, which was already under testing in sports events, to give you access to real-time score update, goals, saves and all the enthralling action from the field. Handy shortcuts for these will be seen on the top of your Timeline.
These changes are being rolled out to Android and iOS users over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more updates.
