Twitter wants to be a bigger part of live events

Twitter is trying to do more than just spotlight trending stories and events -- it's trying to be part of the spotlight as well.

Dick Costolo, the microblogging company's CEO, told The Wall Street Journal that Twitter was ramping up its effort to help users sort out tweets surrounding major, live events by increasing its presence associated with the event. That effort is embodied by a partnership Twitter has formed with NBCUniversal to create a page that would corral millions of tweets sent by athletes, fans, and TV personalities during the Olympics in London.

With the live events effort, Twitter is trying to "more closely tie the shared experience on Twitter to the actual event that is happening," Costolo told the Journal.

The renewed push comes as Twitter and rival Facebook increasingly morph from social networks used to share personal information into media hubs where news, video, photos, and entertainment content is consumed. Some 39 percent of Twitter users said most of the news they got on Twitter in January was not content they would have read elsewhere, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. By resea... [Read more]