Users will be able to follow a specific list of curated 'events' in the upcoming future with Twitter's Project Lightning

Jun 19, 2015 07:38 GMT  ·  By

Twitter has been working on a new project that will make its service more friendly to new users by allowing them to follow a specific list of curated events.

According to a BuzzFeed report, this upcoming feature is being called 'Project Lightning', and should be live by September this year.

Events will take center stage on Twitter in the future

How Project Lightning works is by adding a new section on the Twitter site and mobile apps where users can subscribe to current events and get tweets, photos, Vine and Periscope videos from other users tweeting about that topic. As soon as the event ends, the user is automatically unsubscribed.

Following an event won't subscribe the user to any other user accounts, and tweets from particular events can be viewed either in a dedicated page or blended with the other tweets on your timeline.

Project Lightning events can also be embedded on remote sites, showing tweet streams in real-time, as soon as they're sent out by their owners. All events will be curated by the Twitter team, but plans exist to let a selected group of users create events as well.

Project Lightning aims to put some order in Twitter's tweet-chaos

Tweets in an event can also be viewed by non-registered users, a feature which will greatly improve the social network's appeal to users that have always found it confusing and hard to get started with.

Even if Project Lightning was announced as former CEO Dick Costolo published his resignation, rumors have it he was one of its main supporters.

Interim CEO Jack Dorsey has already confirmed plans to move ahead with Project Lightning, and the company is hoping curated event streams would help them reignite their user numbers, which have stagnated for quite some time now.

It is worth mentioning that Project lightning sure looks like Snapchat's Live Stories feature, which curates photos taken at specific public events. You be the judge of this one!