Twitter is about to change in a major way. With CEO Dick Costolo's impending resignation comes a new innovative feature for the social media site, which is set to change how the app is used.
The new feature, called Project Lightning, which is set for launch later this year, will provide useful information in real time through a button in the center of the mobile app's menu bar, according to Wired. BuzzFeed reports that Lightning will "bring event-based curated content" to Twitter "with immersive and instant-load photos and videos." These will reportedly also be embedded across the Web and even be integrated in other apps.
Kevin Weil, Twitter's Senior Vice President of Product, dubs the new feature as a bold change, saying, "It's a brand new way to look at tweets." According to him, the new feature allows users to easily find content they're interested in -- from current events, breaking news, even Throwback Thursday posts.
How Lightning Works
In the Twitter mobile app, there will be a center button in the Home row dedicated to Lightning. Upon pressing the dedicated button, Twitter will show the user various events or breaking news that other users are talking about, which can range from a sudden earthquake to an ongoing happening such as the NBA finals, etc. If the user selects one of the events, he or she will be directed to a collection of the "best and most relevant" tweets, which are packaged into a collection by a team of Twitter editors. This is where Twitter comes in to create an experience for the user based on real-time events.
Moreover, such user experience includes real-time images and videos, which are not available from the Twitter timeline. According to BuzzFeed, each tweet, image and video will take up the entire screen, so users need to swipe through each to view them. The videos reportedly play automatically and load instantly, firing suddenly as users swipe over them. Additionally, the images and videos are not only exclusively from Twitter, as Vines and Periscope videos are included as well.
What's good about Twitter's new feature is the Lightning events can be accessed on or off Twitter. They can be viewed on the mobile app, the site itself (Twitter.com), or as embeds on other pages on the Web, which will continue to be updated as more tweets are curated.
Weill further explains, "It's not just logged-in Twitter, it's logged-out, and it's syndicated on other websites and mobile apps. This reaches all of them."
Costolo's Resignation & Criticisms
With Project Lightning, Twitter is set to give Wall Street what it has been demanding from the company for years, which is user growth. According to The New York Times, Costolo's resignation has to do with pressure and criticism, with the CEO "grown tired of second-guessing by Wall Street, with its focus on the social network's sluggish user growth and its repeated failures to make its product appealing."
The launch of Project Lightning is expected to improve the current standing of the social media site and app, and if it does become successful, Costolo may indeed get a graceful exit, as it will probably be the last and major change to happen to Twitter under his watch. Costolo's resignation was announced to the public last week, June 11. He is said to officially step down on July 1.
