Twitter and Bloomberg launch breaking news service

LONDON: Twitter and Bloomberg have joined forces to launch TicToc, claimed to be the “first-ever” global social media news service.
The TicToc platform sees Bloomberg journalists curating news on a Twitter-based platform featuring a live screen of breaking news to its left side and a stream of tweets down the right side for news posts, analysis and input from Twitter users.
Bloomberg Media and Twitter said in a joint statement: “The news experience is designed to be interactive, rich with Twitter content and consumable on any device. Coverage will focus on general interest news worldwide.”
The plan for TicToc is to target “the next generation of on-the-go, mobile-first news consumers” with Bloomberg using its network of 2,700 journalists across 120 countries, combining them with the immediacy of Twitter and its evolving place as a go-to platform for breaking news.
Launched on Monday, TicToc was immediately into action reporting on a train derailment near Seattle in the US
Other stories covered were Theresa May addressing parliament on Brexit in the UK, as well as Cyril Ramaphosa winning the leadership battle for the ANC in South Africa.
The service is expected to evolve rapidly, but business and finance — Bloomberg’s traditional output — will feature heavily on TicToc, even though it has launched with a “general interest” mandate.
Bloomberg told Arab News that it “excels” at coverage of finance and business, so there will always be a strong business component to its coverage, as well as TicToc featuring important global news.
The team behind TocToc is growing, with Bloomberg telling Arab News it expects to expand it to 50 people, comprised of editors, producers, social media analysts, product developers, engineers, designers and marketers.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment.