There's The New York Times slogan: "All the News that's Fit to Print." In the age of all that's digital and global, where what's happening now is at a touch of a finger, there may be a new saying: All the tweets you need to notice. These are Twitter Moments.
Twitter now includes a new tab strategically placed between Notifications and Messages that gives people the chance to access the best of Twitter at the touch of a lightning bolt button: Moments.
A Moment is a quick, easily digestible collection of key tweets, full screen photos and videos surrounding a certain news story or event. Topics include general news, entertainment and sports among others.
Consider there are 50 million people monthly on Twitter in the U.S. Take that globally. People around the world are sharing hundreds of millions of tweets daily. The goal of Moments is to serve up the best of what is happening right now to everyone, everywhere.
"I've been thinking about curating Twitter content for a long time. Those go to examples are things that only happen on Twitter, like a public conversation between two high profile people where it's very unlikely they'd meet outside of this platform and not in a public forum. To have this exchange between these two people and share that with the entire world is incredible," Andrew Fitzgerald, Twitter's curation team leader, told E!.
His favorite all-time Twitter moment? This exchange between Drake and T. Boone Pickens:
The first million is the hardest.
? Drizzy (@Drake) May 30, 2012The first billion is a helluva lot harder RT @Drake: The first million is the hardest.
? T. Boone Pickens (@boonepickens) May 31, 2012@boonepickens just stunted on me heavy.
? Drizzy (@Drake) May 31, 2012There are great moments every day that just happen on Twitter, but what about a larger event, like the Oscars? Moments allows users to follow a story for a short while.
"There is an incredible conversation happening on Twitter with many people talking about it within the shows themselves and referencing the Twitter conversation," he said.
The Moments tab is directed for more casual and curious Twitter users.
"If you haven't put a lot of time into curation on your home timeline with entertainment news or celebrities or the Academy on your account, finding that conversation could be difficult," Fitzgerald said.
Now it would be lightning quick. "If our audience hears there is great stuff on Twitter, they can find it very easily now," he said.
How does Twitter decide which Moments to share?
For the past several months, a team of curators practiced the fine-tuned science and art of identifying the most interesting conversations happening, the biggest events in the real time world and Twitter itself.
It's a technologically-driven search to find great Twitter conversations with "a little bit of human judgment" to find the "absolute best."
"If you look across the news industry, a lot of people are already curating Twitter content. Some of the best might be the Today show or see how it is embedded on CNN.com," Fitzgerald said.
"When users hear about interesting things on Twitter, we want to make sure when they come to Twitter to see for themselves and actually find the content they heard about front and center," he said.
How does it work?
When you tap on the Moments tab, you will see a title and description. You can start swiping to get into the story with photos, videos, Vines and GIFs.
A single tap provides a larger view of the tweet and can be favorited or retweeted. Double tap instantly favorites the tweet. At the bottom, a progress bar shows users what's left to experience content-wise in the Moment.
You can swipe up or down to dismiss the Moment and return to the guide. When the Moment is over, you can click a share button to tweet comments or send it out to followers.
Fitzgerald made it clear that curators or editors are not creating news reports, but collecting news and conversations on Twitter. Their aim is to tell a story. The curators come from diverse background where they have experience in finding the best content on Twitter.
"Moment is a new medium of storytelling on Twitter with an enormous amount of flexibility," he said. "There is room to experience around what happens today and experiment and look back further in time."
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