Twitter has announced a new feature designed to give people a better sense of the context behind the site’s characteristically short, 140-character tweets.
So-called ‘related headlines’ will appear from Monday as a section within tweets that have been embedded on external websites. The section will contain lists and links to websites where the tweet was embedded, "making it easier to discover stories that provide more context," Twitter software engineer Brian Wallerstein said in a blog post.
The related headlines section will also appear on a tweet’s permalink page.
The tool, Twitter says, is aimed at uncovering the stories behind a tweet.
To illustrate how the feature works, a Twitter spokeswoman pointed to the first tweet posted by Hillary Clinton, last June. The tweet is a bit obtuse – "Thanks for the inspiration @ASmith83 & @Sllambe – I’ll take it from here," it said.
But under related headlines, there are dozens of links to news articles sporting headlines such as "Hillary Clinton joins Twitter," or "Hillary Clinton starts tweeting," giving a better sense of the tweet’s significance.
Twitter cited National Basketball Association center Jason Collins as another example. When Collins became the first NBA player to publicly come out as gay, the news traveled quickly across the social network, Twitter said. As news outlets like ESPN and MSNBC reported the story, they embedded the athlete’s tweet while providing additional context that was not available on Twitter, the company said.
The related headlines feature is one tool built on top of Twitter’s recently expanded Cards program. The social network announced the changes in April as a way to make tweets more interactive and give developers more ways to embed other types of content into tweets such as mobile app download links, photo galleries and product listings.
Twitter rolled out its ‘cards’ feature in June 2012.
Twitter’s related headlines tool could improve the company’s ability to compete against Facebook, which has released several new features in recent months aimed at making the site more public. Facebook announced an embed feature last month, to let people insert their posts on Facebook external websites. That tool currently does not offer a related headlines function similar to Twitter’s.
IDG News Service
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