Announced by Twitter product manager Amaryllis Fox in a blog post earlier today, Collections are distinct product pages within Twitter that will let users see more information on products or places. These product pages include user reviews, tweets about the product, and, in a few cases, a buy button that will let users buy the product without leaving the page.
The option to buy won’t always be there, however, as Collections seems to be more about browsing. For example, Ellen DeGeneres has a “Best of The Ellen Shop” Collection that features apps, shirts, bags, and more. These products don’t feature a buy button, and instead DeGeneres’ Collection will direct you to the respective product pages on The Ellen Shop’s website.
Nike, Target, Reese Witherspoon, Demi Lovato, and Ellen DeGeneres are among the 41 that will partner with Twitter on Collections, which hints at the feature having been in the works for quite some time. Much like DeGeneres’ Collection, retailers can choose to either enable users to buy directly from their Collections, or redirect users to their websites. Retailers will likely experiment with both options at launch in order to gauge which option users prefer.
Retailers won’t pay to have their products in their Collections, nor will Twitter take a slice of their sales revenues at launch, though that will presumably change after Collections gets off the ground — which starts today for Twitter’s website and its Android and iOS applications.
With today’s announcement of Collections, Twitter is likely sending the message that it can develop products relatively quickly. Just yesterday, the company unveiled Project Lightning, an ambitious project that entails the curation of news and current events, and that will allow users to follow topics instead of following people.
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