Twitter recategorized itself from “social networking” to “news” in Apple’s App Store

As a social networking app, Twitter ranked fifth among free apps, but as a news app, it now ranks number one. Coincidence?

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Twitter’s not a social network anymore; it’s in the news industry, at least that’s what its iOS app indicates.

Twitter appears to have moved its app in Apple’s App Store from the “social networking” category to “news” earlier this week. Journalist Cory Bergman spotted the switch on Thursday and posted a screen shot of the new placement on Twitter, which is where people get news.

Twitter and Apple did not respond to requests for comment on who was responsible for the change and why it was made.

It appears that Twitter was the one responsible for the switch. Apple’s developer documentation shows that app makers can change their apps’ categories when they’re updating an app to a new version, which seems to be exactly what Twitter did.

Twitter appears to have made the change with its latest app update that was pushed out on April 27, based on data from mobile app analytics firm App Annie, which keeps a historical catalog of Apple’s App Store charts.

App Annie’s charts also seem to show why Twitter would have made the change. On April 26, Twitter ranked fifth among free apps in the App Store’s “social networking” category, trailing three Facebook-owned apps and Pinterest. Now, it tops the “news” category’s list of free apps. How much of a difference the new ranking in the new category will make remains to be seen, but after its rough latest quarterly earnings report, Twitter could use a win.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Tim Peterson
Contributor
Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands' early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo's and Google's search designs and examine the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.

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