Twitter has updated the experience on the mobile apps (iOS and Android) by getting rid of links and replacing them with a card like format. Conveniently named “Summary Cards” Twitter users who use the official iOS and Android apps will be able to see more information where it gives you a preview of the contents of the link, similar to how Facebook has been doing.
We've updated Summary Cards! iOS & Android users will start seeing more detail about web content in their timelines. pic.twitter.com/gZv2B6vham
— Twitter (@twitter) July 14, 2015
Twitter has been positioning itself as a news platform. It updated the way we reply to conversations where it is now easier to track comments about a viral since these conversations are bundled together. Vines and videos nowadays auto play on the timeline so that you rarely miss them. In addition, the micro-blogging site has a rumoured curated news service called Moments which will aggregate events that are being tweeted about which actually will be maintained by a team of editors on Twitter. It also bought the livestream app, Periscope which is all about broadcasting real time events live.
Yesterday, Pew Research released a report which they found that in America, 63% of Twitter users use the platform as a “source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family”. This is a jump from 52% recorded in 2003. Twitter’s strength is in breaking news and the report found that 59% of users in its platform follow breaking news, which in relation is significantly higher than the proportion of Facebook users who do that (31%). Other findings were that Twitter users are more likely to report seeing news on certain topics than Facebook users and Twitter users are more likely to follow news organizations.
Although that research was based on a survey of US adults, it actually gives a glimpse of how people view Twitter as an importance source of news. This new Twitter update further solidifies this perception by users on the platform & now the company is making it easy for users to get a hint of the news being tweeted on the platform.
