Like many people, I turned to Twitter on Wednesday to try and follow what was going on with the Kavanaugh hearing. While it would have been optimal to sit in front of the television all day, I did need to actually do some work and checking Twitter for updates every so often seemed like it would be far more effective than visiting various news sites, most of whom had the ever-tempting live stream running .
The problem with that soon became evident: by clicking on the #KavanaughHearing hashtag and then looking at the top tabs I stumbled on two big issues.
First off, the "Top" tweets were not in any sort of chronological order, so I was seeing tweets from 12 or 18 hours prior.
Second, and far more problematic, was that the majority of “top” tweets were not from reporters at one of the major news outlets, but from random “Twitter Famous” users, the vast majority of whom had become Twitter Famous (right down to the blue checkmark) due to the outrageousness of their output. Some were far right, some far left, some just wannabe comedians, but none of them were offering up any actual news about what was happening at the hearing.
Twitter Needs A Curated News Feed
Which is when it hit me that Twitter was blowing a golden opportunity here: provide a more curated feed, featuring about a dozen or so mainstream news sources. Period. No comedians with 500,000 followers, no internet pundits, no celebrities or politicians. Just actual mainstream news outlets from across the political spectrum with actual reporters who were out there, at the scene, reporting live.
That would solve several of Twitter’s biggest problems, including the biggest, which is that Twiter has become an anarchist's dream, a place devoid of any sort of civil discourse. Which, as I have noted many times in the past, is their own fault, in that they foolishly refuse to accept that, for most people, Twitter is a news outlet, not a social media site. Users just want a quick way to find out what’s going on in the world. Without having wade through a pile of crazies spouting conspiracy theories. And without having to actually talk to anybody.
Creating a feed made up of mainstream news outlets would also allow Twitter to offer brands something unique: a promise of brand safety. And if I were Twitter, I’d turn off @ messaging on those tweets, making it a broadcast-only feed to increase the level of brand safety. Users would be able to hit "retweet" and share the tweets (with comments) to their heart’s delight, but anyone looking at the feed would only see the original tweets.
News For Adults
The feed would also be aimed at adults, which would give Twitter a leg up on Snapchat, the only social media site that’s currently offering a curated brand-safe news feed.
Snapchat's problem is that much of what’s available on Snapchat Discover feels like a social media version of Weekly Reader, the newsletter generations of American schoolchildren used for current events when they were in third or fourth grade and was written for someone at a third or fourth grade reading level.
By offering a social media feed aimed at adults, Twitter could solidify its position as the premier social media news outlet.
Not Twitter News Redux
Twitter had actually tried something called the News tab back in 2015, along with something called Moments, but the idea was all wrong for Twitter—they were trying to retell stories after they’d already happened, rather than in real time, which is why people came to Twitter in the first place. Worse, they were trying hard to push video, which was hot at the time, but people weren't coming to Twitter to watch video--they were coming because they didn't have time to watch video and just needed the news in quick 140-character hits. To add insult to injury, much of the “news” they covered seemed to be fluffy celebrity stories or trend pieces, not the sort of hard news people associated with Twitter.
Monetization
The system I’m proposing doesn’t require any major changes to the Twitter UI, just a new tab, one that’s searchable by hashtag. The section could, if they wanted, be free for users who didn’t mind seeing the premium ads they were running, and cost a small subscription fee for those who wanted to see it ad-free.
Another option would be to charge the news outlets themselves for a place on the feed. It would seem to be a worthwhile investment for both print and television outlets, as they could use it to drive tune-in by making users more familiar with specific reporters and by posting links that drove users back to their home pages.
The key to success would be limiting the feed to the sorts of large mainstream publications that still maintain reporters in the field, not celebrities or politicians or thought leaders or activists. (e.g., the sort of news sources Apple's been using for Apple News.)
The tab would not supplant the anarchic wild west Twitter than some users love, but rather, it would provide an alternate, more civilized and (most important) more easily navigated, , troll-free, Russian manipulation-free version of the site that would have the added benefit of proving out the value of the site as a news outlet.
Twitter has tried the other version for so many years, maybe it’s time for them to go old school.
