Twitter experiments with ‘News Tab’ feature

Twitter rolled out a News Tab feature to some of its U.S. users Tuesday, an experimental effort to make it easier for people to find headlines that are trending on the platform.

The feature is the latest in a string of products the San Francisco company has launched since Jack Dorsey took the reins as chief executive in June. Facing mounting pressure from Wall Street to improve ad revenue and user growth, the launch of features such as News Tab and the recently-released product and place pages are seen as the social network’s latest efforts to make relevant a platform that has fallen behind competitors such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.

The News Tab feature, which is already available in Japan, appears as a middle tab on the mobile version of Twitter, and brings up a list of trending headlines. When users click on the headlines, they’re taken to a story screen with image, some text from the story, and the top tweets discussing it.

“We’re experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android as we continue to explore new ways to surface the best content to users,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

In its most recent quarter, Twitter reported having 304 million monthly active users, up 2 million from the first quarter.

Twitter: @traceylien