Six months after launching Moments, an instant front page of sorts that shows American Twitter users the world’s most popular stories with a single click, Twitter Inc. is bringing the service to Canada, the company announced today.
Like its American counterpart, Moments Canada will be curated by a team of veteran journalists, based in Toronto and led by the Toronto Star’s former senior social media editor, Jennifer Wilson.
The first promoted Canadian item, appropriately enough, will come from Rogers Communications Inc. and involve hockey: a series of tweets promoting the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs that will be shared on April 13.
To use Moments, all Canadian Twitter users need do is tap or click on the new lightning bolt tab that will now appear on their smartphone or desktop: doing so opens a list of news items, similar to Reddit’s front page or Facebook’s “trending” feed, that users are discussing and which is updated throughout the day. Like a newspaper, users can also find the day’s events grouped under topics such as “Entertainment” and “Sports.”
Clicking on a news item brings up an introduction, after which users can swipe through a collection of related pictures, videos, vines, and GIFs; a list of related tweets, complete with a progress bar indicating how many tweets remain available; or add related tweets to their timeline, “following” a moment for a limited amount of time.
Both mobile and desktop users can also access Moments Canada from a new Twitter account, @CanadaMoments, and Twitter Canada will be sharing news items through its two other accounts, @TwitterCanada and @TwitterSportsCA, as well.