The trending section of any website, particularly YouTube and Twitter, is a good representation of what global culture is paying the most attention to at any given point in time. However, Twitter’s trending section has always been a little confusing. You see words and sentences that might be trending but you generally don’t get a lot of context as to why this may be happening. Some people might choose to do a little digging if they don’t know why a particular topic might be trending but others often take the trend at face value and make assumptions about it which can be quite problematic.
Twitter is trying to change this by adding a lot of new things to the trending section. Now if you see a trend you would also see a headline as well as a description that might give you a little bit of context with regards to why that particularly topic might be trending in the first place. You will also be seeing representative tweets that are essentially designed to give users a platform specific example of what has made a certain topic trend before they can make false assumptions about it.
A good example of this can be seen in the current top trend. Rapper Travis Scott is trending right now thanks to his menu collaboration with McDonalds. However, if the trending page only shows his name as trending people might assume that he did something that was morally reprehensible since this is something that often leads to people being on the trending section. This misconception might lead to people attacking the rapper online, but if these contextual clues are added then this would no longer happen. It would also lead to much more seamless scrolling for users since they won’t have to navigate away from their timeline to understand why a specific topic might be trending.
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Twitter is trying to change this by adding a lot of new things to the trending section. Now if you see a trend you would also see a headline as well as a description that might give you a little bit of context with regards to why that particularly topic might be trending in the first place. You will also be seeing representative tweets that are essentially designed to give users a platform specific example of what has made a certain topic trend before they can make false assumptions about it.
A good example of this can be seen in the current top trend. Rapper Travis Scott is trending right now thanks to his menu collaboration with McDonalds. However, if the trending page only shows his name as trending people might assume that he did something that was morally reprehensible since this is something that often leads to people being on the trending section. This misconception might lead to people attacking the rapper online, but if these contextual clues are added then this would no longer happen. It would also lead to much more seamless scrolling for users since they won’t have to navigate away from their timeline to understand why a specific topic might be trending.
More trend updates, even more context. We’ll now add improved headlines and short descriptions to some Trends, so you can get the rundown on why something’s trending when you’re in the Explore tab or you tap into a Trend. https://t.co/PW2PiYYsQG pic.twitter.com/oOgByMJLME— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 8, 2020
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