Twitter is testing new features to make its social feed more shoppable.
Today the company announced two new beta features, Product and Place Pages and Collections. Both functions will enable users to surface and share more branded content.
In tandem with the announcement, Twitter is showing off a host of launch partners, including Elle Magazine, TechCrunch, DJ Steve Aoki, YouTube star Michelle Phan, and actress Reese Witherspoon.
Product and Place Pages will give certain products or places a dedicated page featuring information related to the subject, such as pricing, websites, images, video, and tweets. Consumers will also be able to buy, and book appointments for services, directly from the product page, although some products will redirect consumers to the product’s website.
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Product and Place Pages will be accompanied by Collections, a way for users to create and share collections of products. To give you a sense of what this Collections thing is about, here is the Game of Thrones collection:
The Game of Thrones Product Collection is just a feed of Game of Thrones-related paraphernalia with links to product pages. Anyone can create product and place collections, because of course this is all about generating buzz among users for products.
Twitter’s two new products seem like variations on features that other Internet companies have messed around with. Product Pages feels quite reminiscent of Facebook’s Business Page, while the Product Collections features feels a bit Pinterest-y — a place to collect stuff you love.
Both Pinterest and Facebook are currently testing buy-buttons of their own.
Twitter doesn’t say whether this new service will come at a cost to businesses, but it’s easy to see how this could generate a nice little bit of revenue for the company if it did decide to take a cut of sales.
And that might make an otherwise confused set of investors a little bit happier.
Twitter has recently come under the scrutiny of investors because of changes to its executive team. CEO Dick Costolo announced last week that he’s stepping down from his post and that former Twitter CEO and board member Jack Dorsey would be taking the helm while the company looks for a new lead.
Since then we’ve heard a lot about Twitter’s plans for the future, including its next steps for making sense of Twitter for the masses and now how it will implement commerce on its site. While investors may still have a lot of questions about where Twitter is headed, at least some of them have faith the company is making the right decisions. Well, at least this one:
https://twitter.com/sacca/status/611936904448049152
