Twitter tests a new full-screen display for “Explore” that is similar to TikTok

For the first time ever, Twitter is testing a full-screen, vertically scrolling version of its Explore tab. This is part of the company’s long-term plan to make personalised recommendations and find more interesting content on the site.

If you look at it, it looks a lot like TikTok, with a Twitter navigation bar at the bottom. The Stories format may have had the same effect, with almost every platform experimenting with full-screen posts and tapping to move forward. 

With more than a billion users and counting, it stands to reason that other social media sites are trying to follow patterns in order to make their users more excited about their apps, and yet this TikTok’s effect (on all other apps) is even stronger.  Just because they’re all doing the same thing makes it seem like they’re cheap, or like they’re all cheap.

In any case, how people feel about it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is whether people use Twitter more and find new content through this format.  Which is something I’m not convinced of. 

All of this is what makes TikTok so appealing. The algorithm is very good at showing you more of the things that you like, which keeps you coming back for more and more. Like Instagram’s Reels feed, I’m not confident in Twitter’s ability to manage this element either.

People are now trying to figure out how to break TikTok’s algorithm, and it looks like every platform is trying to do the same thing. For me, TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed is the only thing that I’ve found that keeps me coming back for more. Instagram is getting closer, but I haven’t found anything that keeps me coming back for more.

It’s possible that Twitter could copy the UI, but that’s not the most important thing. It will be interesting to see if more people use Explore as a result, which will make the new UI more common.

Currently, Twitter’s Explore feature is in beta mode ‘in a few countries,’ however India, where TikTok was popular before it was banned, appears to be the main focus of the company’s development efforts.