- It's curated. There are people selecting both the stories (say, the premiere of a TV show, a football game, or a convention) and the tweets for each story.
- It doesn't require a sign-in. You can view Moments without having a Twitter account, at least on the web site.
- It doesn't require follows. You don't have to decide which accounts are worth following, and you don't have to read a feed to find interesting tweets.
- It's pretty darn good. The content is interesting, visually engaging, and quick to scan and digest.
Moments' origin shouldn't be a big surprise. Shows and events have been trying to use hashtags as a way of pulling together tweets on a topic (but consuming those tweets was always a pain). TV news programs have even been spending time reading tweets on the air pertaining to a news story. They effectively (if awkwardly) test-piloted Moments before Twitter built it.
What's interesting about Moments is more what it isn't than what it is:
- It's not about people tweeting their thoughts in 140 characters.
- It's not about hashtags.
- It's not about direct messaging.
- It's not about back-and-forth conversations between two or three people.
- It's not about tweetstorms.
Moments is a recognition by Twitter that they have one of the best sources of current news in the world, and tries to solve the discovery problem around it. If Twitter doubles down on it (and I hope they do), they have to also recognize that a lot of what people do with Twitter today isn't what the Twitter of tomorrow will be known for.
So, my question now is: is Moments too late? As an example: Facebook has Trending Topics. They could make that product way move visible, or maybe even pull it into a separate app, and compete fairly effectively to a much larger audience. I think the answer depends on how well Twitter focuses on products like Moments, and how well they move beyond their legacy of short, SMS-based broadcast communication and try to become the world's best real-time newspaper.
