Twitter To Reinvent Itself With “Project Lightning”

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Twitter has been undergoing some major changes recently, including a leadership change, eliminating character limit in direct messages, and officially rolling out its autoplaying video ads. And now, reports claim that Twitter has been working on a new project codenamed “Project Lightning” that could help twitter reinvent how people see and search for tweets.

This new project will bring a curated news platform to Twitter, shifting its content focus from user’s timeline to breaking news and events as they happen in real time. A group of editors at Twitter will be handpicking and sorting relevant tweets into various event-based channels, enhancing Twitter’s appeal as a go-to site for real time news and events. Although still a few months away from launching, we could already foresee brands getting on board with timely tweets to get a piece of the amplified attention.

 

Correction: An earlier version of the post misspelled “Project Lighting” as “Lightening”.

Snapchat’s ‘Our Story’ Could Be Revenue Driver

Snapchat is releasing “Our Story,” a new feature which lets people attending the same event contribute snaps to a collective story, viewable to the public. Debuting with the Electric Daisy Carnival, Our Story is a huge development that may be a source of revenue for Snapchat as it looks to monetize events. But with location services enabled and public viewing, could “Our Story” undermine Snapchat’s core product?

Russia Announces Mobile Photography Ban For 2014 Winter Olympics

The Sochi Winter Olympics, coming this January, are reportedly coming with a ban on any mobile photography by journalists.  In fact, the ban extends to all non-professional equipment, ruling out the possibility for reporting via Instagram, Vine, Whatsapp, Frontback, and any other media-creating platform presently shaking up what it means to broadcast information and media online.  This attempt at placing tight controls on the flow of news out of Russia during the games is not new – London tried to ban social media during its turn hosting the Olympics in 2012 – but the question remains, how effective can it be? Will journalists and news outlets be willing to risk their credentials to reach consumers faster, more effectively, and more intimately than ever before during one of the world’s testing grounds for media coverage?