by 18a Editorial
Twitter is set to rival Snapchat with a new camera-first feature that could change the emphasis on the platform from text, to video and images. Having admitted that their popularity and growth had stalled in February last year, it’s no wonder they’re working hard to stay relevant.
“The new function would combine location-based photos and videos with Twitter Moments around notable events. Companies could sponsor events or place ads in between tweeted real-time photos and videos.” – CNBC
Twitter is primarily known for online news and social networking through short messages known as Tweets. Originally restricted to 140 characters, on November 7, 2017, the limit was doubled to 280 characters, much to the delight of many.
Similarly to Instagram, Twitter uses hashtags to sort and filter tweets to their relevant audience and a big part of news share through twitter is checking on the trending now hashtags, keeping users up to date with what the world is mostly speaking about. Since we are used to posting on Twitter in real time, a camera-first feature makes a whole lot of sense and if done right could definitely improve the use for many.
Looking to capitalize on its position as a key source for real-time updates on news and events, Twitter’s also testing out a new breaking news module, which will highlight big news stories at the top of user timelines – an extension to their already ‘happening now’ feature.
It’s not yet been confirmed when the new camera-first feature will come into play so we will have to keep our eyes peeled and decide for ourselves how similar it really is to Snapchat and whether it makes a difference to twitters decreasing popularly.