Twitter announced updates to its platform on Wednesday that it says should make it easier for users to find and follow big events and news.

Twitter, which has grappled with slowing user growth, credited making it easier for people to follow topics, interests and events on Twitter as part of the reason why it was able to attract more users in its first quarter. Twitter in April beat monthly active user projections, hitting 336 million at a growth rate of 6 percent year over year.

The updates announced Wednesday will be available in the coming months to U.S. iOS and Android users.

As it stands, users must first find the relevant accounts, hashtags or moments to find news of interest to them. The social media company set out to make that process more intuitive.

Twitter’s “explore” feature will be organized by topic instead of content type and the company is experimenting with topic tabs for a more customized news experience. The timeline will also receive a makeover: The “happening now” feature, introduced last year, will be expanded to include tweets about breaking and personalized news.

Twitter will also tweak notifications to include tweets from certain users and on specific topics that interest each individual user. The notifications can, of course, be silenced.

Lastly, “moments” is getting a new look. Users will be able to swipe up, rather than horizontally, to view a moment — a change Twitter said users preferred.

Source: Tech CNBC
Twitter is trying to make it easier to spot the news. Here are the changes it's making