Dive Brief:
- Twitter’s “Project Lightning” is expected to be available in a few months and will feature curated feeds based on major events like the Super Bowl, plus breaking and ongoing news events such as natural disasters.
- The feeds will be available to anyone visiting the platform, including people not signed up with Twitter, helping the platform reach that non-logged in audience.
- Project Lightning feeds will include rich media such as instantly loading video (Twitter optimized its platform for autoplay videos this month) and photo collections.
Dive Insight:
Twitter's upcoming curated feed feature Project Lightning, which is slated for launch by the end of the year, will include autoplay videos and photos around major events, such as the Oscars, and current news events. A key selling point of Project Lightning feeds is they will be available to anyone, logged in or not, allowing Twitter to reach people who are otherwise non-users. Currently Twitter is planning on seven to 10 curated feeds around events each day, and outgoing CEO Dick Costolo said Project Lightening might eventually be opened to third-party publishers.
Twitter Project Chief Kevin Weil said Project Lightning is a new way of looking at tweets and described the project to BuzzFeed as “a bold change, not evolutionary.” Explaining the potential content of the curated feeds he said, “It could be current events. It could be breaking news. It could be awards shows or sports. But also cultural events and moments -- things around your location and where you are ... But the challenge we’ve had over the years is, although we have the world’s greatest content, it’s like having a television without a channel guide or even a remote control.”
It remains to be seen, but conceivably Project Lightning feeds could offer a channel for marketers to take advantage of real-time marketing opportunities around scheduled event feeds and breaking news.
