Twitter Adds 'Related Headlines' to Embedded Tweets

Twitter has already marked its territory as the go-to social media platform for breaking news. But the company is taking another step to cement that title by today launching the new "related headlines" feature.

Tweets that have been embedded on websites will now include links to those sites underneath the initial message, making it easier to discover stories that mention particular tweets.

Software engineer Brian Wallerstein put the new function into context, explaining that when NBA player Jason Collins this year became the first NBA player to publicly come out, the news traveled quickly thanks to a tweet from the basketball superstar.

"As outlets like ESPN, MSNBC and sports blog Bleacher Report reported the story, they embedded [Collins'] tweet and then provided additional context that wasn't available directly on Twitter," Wallerstein said.

The related headlines feature, which is meant to draw more attention to the story behind the 140-character message, appears on a tweet's permalink page, as displayed in a June tweet from Hillary Clinton (below).

The former Secretary of State's first-ever Twitter interaction garnered a lot of attention, thanks in part to her reference to the popular "Texts from Hillary" parody account. But now, those who stumble on the link and are not aware of what she's talking about can simply click on the links beneath her tweet for more context.

The feature appears to be rolling out slowly — a quick test at the PCMag offices shows that only some embedded tweets seem to display the list of websites.

News of the feature first cropped up last month when an eagle-eyed security expert noticed it on certain tweets. Within hours of his discovery, the function disappeared without explanation.

That came several months after the company boosted its embeddable tweets, allowing for the display of more information, from article summaries to re-tweet counts.