Twitter is becoming more interactive.
On Thursday, Michael Sippey, Director of the Product Team at Twitter, said that users – beginning today – can discover more interactive experiences inside any Tweet on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com.
What does that mean exactly? Here’s how Sippey describes the Twitter tweak:
When you expand Tweets containing links to partner websites, you can now see content previews, view images, play videos and more.
“You’ve probably expanded Tweets before to play videos from YouTube or see photos from Instagram,” he writes on the Official Twitter blog. “Now, a diverse and growing group of new partners like the The Wall Street Journal, Breaking News, and TIME also deliver rich content inside Tweets containing a link to those websites.”
In a nutshell, Twitter has made it easier to discover breaking news and bylines. So from now on, when you expand a Tweet linking to a news article by The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle or Der Spiegel Online, you can see a preview with the headline, the introduction and sometimes the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer.
“You can continue to read the article, follow these accounts, and reply, favorite or retweet the Tweet. You can also see exclusive photos from inside the WWE ring, or images from sources like BuzzFeed and TMZ,” he says.
Based on this morning’s announcement, this new way to discover content from the web begins rolling out to everyone on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com today. Although a time frame wasn’t outlined, soon it will also come to Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android.