More than half of Twitter users say they look to the platform for news, and now it's official: Twitter has classified its iOS app in the news category on the App Store.
The move was likely intended to boost Twitter's position in the store's rankings; it now occupies the top spot in the news category, while it was previously No. 10 in social media, behind Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Pinterest, and others, according to TechCrunch.
Most Twitter users access the service using their mobile devices, and the company has made multiple efforts to keep them from double-clicking their home buttons and switching to Facebook or other social media apps. Those efforts include increasing the appeal of its photo-sharing capabilities and live-streaming options.
Twitter has struggled with growth recently; its monthly active user base hovers around 300 million, up from 240 million two years ago. Facebook, meanwhile, has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, an increase of more than 300 million from 2014.
So it appears that new features aren't prompting an explosion in user growth. Increasing its app store ranking by switching to the news category might be more successful if Twitter can convince new users looking for news coverage that it is a reasonable alternative to Flipboard or even The New York Times.
Interestingly, the move comes a few months after Apple tweaked its search results algorithm to include more related apps. For example, when you search for "Twitter," apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific show up within the top results thanks to partial keyword matching. That means a top ranking is even more important for Twitter to distinguish itself, since it might not be the first app users find when they're searching for it.
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