Twitter to up live event focus

Twitter is reportedly planning to up its focus on live event coverage with a major new update later this year, dubbed Project Lightning. 

According to a Buzzfeed report, Twitter is planning to add a new button to its service that will let users access event-based curated content, clicking to get information about events ranging from music festivals and sports fixtures to breaking news.

Twitter will reportedly deliver relevant tweets, videos, photos, Vines and live Periscope feeds as part of the new service, with users able to swipe through the content in fullscreen, rather than the typical timeline mode.

The plans come after Twitter launched Periscope, an app that lets users share and watch live video broadcasts from their mobile phones, in March this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported separately yesterday that Twitter had tried earlier this year to bid for the NFL’s first streaming-only broadcast in October, but lost out to Yahoo.