Twitter update includes personal news, notices

Twitter will personalize news for users and send them notifications of events, trying to attract a bigger, broader audience with one of its most comprehensive product updates in years.

The changes follow several iterations to make the social-media platform less cumbersome for new users, who may find it hard to decide whose opinions to follow and how to engage in conversations.

Twitter will predict relevant topics and send breaking-news notifications based on a person’s interests. It’s overhauling the explore section of the mobile app to show curated content for major events and stories that are organized by topics like news, entertainment and sports.

Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey “often says we want Twitter to be the little bird on your shoulder that tells you what you need to know, when you need to know it,” said Keith Coleman, the San Franciscobased company’s vice president of product.

“When something important happens on Twitter, we want Twitter to tap you on the shoulder and say ‘hey, this is going on and we want you to check it out.’ ”

For example, with the volcanic eruption in Hawaii, Twitter could alert people with a notification that would take them to the most relevant tweets, photos, and live videos.

To get the most in-depth experience, a user would have had to search for a specific hashtag that identifies the event, follow the tweets of Hawaiian government officials, or search for other accounts.

Twitter wants to make it as easy for someone to stay connected to an event as it is to follow an individual person, Coleman said.

Twitter shares have rallied more than 80 percent this year, as investors grow confident in the company’s turnaround strategy and pace of product innovations.

Dorsey has focused on using artificial intelligence to personalize content for people and improve the algorithms to filter out spam and automated accounts called bots.