Roger Fingas
Twitter today made a collection of changes to the way trends are presented in its iOS and Android apps, incorporating new information while simultaneously doing away with #discover and activity.
In the U.S., users with the latest version of the official Twitter app should see a relocated trends view after tapping the Search icon. Hashtags are now accompanied by short descriptions, and in some cases data on how many tweets have been posted about a topic and whether it's growing or shrinking in popularity.
The hashtag descriptions are typically in headline form based on post contents. #BostonBombing, for example, is accompanied by "Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 charges in Boston bombing." Mixed in with genuine trends are promoted ones from advertisers.
At the moment, the new trends format is available exclusively in the U.S., limited to English posts, and appears only for people who have tailored trends enabled for their account. In an announcement earlier today, Twitter said that it's "experimenting with similar features" for the web, and planning to bring the new features to more countries at a later date.
The iOS version of the Twitter app is a free download for any device running iOS 7 or better. The latest update was actually released on Monday, but today's changes are rolling out silently on the backend.
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