Twitter Launches Curator Tool for Media Partners
A new way for the company to make money
Of the many notable social networking services out there, Twitter has been one of the most popular ones for a while. However, it has come to the point where its user numbers have begun to stagnate. A problem that hasn’t been helped by the company’s CEO admitting that the platform sucks when it comes to dealing with trolls. As a result, it is looking for new ways to generate revenue. So to help keep the money rolling in, Twitter has publicly launched Curator, a tool for media partners to help search, filter, and curate Twitter for content that they can then display on their website, mobile apps, and even TV.
“Curator was built to allow media publishers to search, filter and curate Twitter content that can then be displayed on web, mobile and TV,” said Twitter product Manager Matt Dennebaum on the company’s official blog. “Those who have been testing Curator have seen strong increases in audience engagement, participation and attention. With these encouraging results, we’re opening up the product to all media publishers around the world, for free. This includes news organizations, production companies, broadcasters, local governments, and even concert venues.”
The new tool gives media publishers the ability to create complex keyword and hashtag queries to help discover streams containing high quality Tweets. Such queries can then be refined by location, follower counts, and languages in order to create a collection of the most relevant tweets that are pertinent to a particular topic. In addition, publishers will be able to work with Twitter Certified Partners, such as Flowics and ScribbleLive, for access to more advanced integrations, customizations, and hands-on support.
How much revenue Curator will bring in for Twitter is anyone’s guess. But it could be a big cash grab for the company which saw its average number of monthly active users grow by only 20 percent in the fourth quarter and its stock in 2014 drop from $65 a share to around $35 by the end of the year.