When Twitter unveiled its mid-June feature update, focusing the company on a message of serving “What’s Happening“, it seemed strange.
Twitter first embraced “What’s happening?“, the prompt to create new tweets, back in 2009.
But, this time, the company was making some product changes, to better emphasise its role at the heart of global user conversations and events.
And that’s an enhancement which the company’s head of media says came just in time for some of the world’s biggest events – the soccer World Cup.
“Being able to follow these events, these topics, and not just accounts, is a really great way for us to surface relevant content to consumers as they’re in this discovery mindset and they’re looking for content of what’s happening,” says media and entertainment MD Jennifer Prince.
Twitter in June said it would introduce:
- Topic-based organisation for its mobile app Explore section, rather than content type-based.
- Recaps for events atop search results.
- Extending its “Happening now” feature, for live sports accompaniment, to breaking and personalised news.
- Notifications for news and events.
- A vertical reorientation for its Moments tweet collections.
The service has a page for every game of the World Cup.
