Twitter experimenting with ‘news’ tab in apps

Twitter is experimenting with a Trending News tab within its mobile apps as it searches for ways to keep people using the service for longer. You can just tap on a headline and you’ll be directed to a story screen that consists of an image, a block of text from the report and top tweets that discuss the story.

“We’re experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android as we continue to explore new ways to surface the best content to users”, a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

Without being able to play with the news tabs as it’s not now available outside of the United States, it does look fairly unobtrusive and if properly tailored to individual user preferences versus simply vanilla one size fits all news, it could actually be a seriously good value-add for the company. The tab has already rolled out to both iOS and Android users in Japan, but there is no information on exactly where and when it will roll out to other users.

There’s no word as to if, or when, the testing of the news tab will occur outside the United States. It is unclear if it will expand globally to become a permanent, fully integrated part of the Twitter app. In June the microblogging platform previewed “Project Lightning”, which allows Twitter and its users to aggregate content around events in curated spaces on the platform, including photos and videos. It also provides historical data on previous events, including how many Twitter users were engaged, popular hashtags and keywords, and the audience profile.