Twitter has announced new features and updates for cricket fans in India. The microblogging platform has launched a live scorecard for cricket matches and is testing the country’s very first Twitter Community, Cricket Twitter - India.
The platform has witnessed a significant surge in conversations around cricket on the platform over the past year. Between July 1 2020-July 1 2021 there were more than 75 million conversations about cricket on Twitter in India.
The updates have been announced to enhance fans’ immersive experience on the platform.
"To make #CricketTwitter's experience even better, Twitter is also testing its first community outside of the US, dedicated to Indian cricket fans called Cricket Twitter - India, to talk about all things cricket in multiple Indian languages," Twitter said in an official release.
Communities first started testing in the US in September this year as a way for people to find and connect with others who wanted to talk about the same things as them. They are currently only accessible through invite.
Communities are started and managed by moderators. Users who accept invites to join a community become members and will be able to invite others in turn.
"When you join a community, you can Tweet directly to that audience instead of to all your followers. While Community Tweets are publicly available, only members in the same community are able to reply and join the conversation, so it stays intimate and relevant," Twitter explained.
Any user can read, Quote Tweet, and report Community Tweets similar to public Tweets. Currently, communities are accessible through invite only on iOS, Web and Android mobile browser, with access on Android app and more functionalities coming soon. Anyone globally can be invited to join a Community via Direct Messages.
Users on communities will have to follow Twitter rules, while moderators will have to meet Twitter's eligibility requirements.
"As we open up community creation and moderation to more people, we’ll continue to refine eligibility requirements. As we test initially, community moderators are approved by Twitter," it said.
It is also introducing a new live scorecard feature for Twitter users. During a match, users will be able to see the scorecard on the Explore tab and live Events Page.
"Fans will be able to follow the scores from the match in real-time while scrolling through Tweets," it said.
The scorecard will be available to everyone in India on iOS as well as the Web and will roll out to most users on Android.
"In the coming weeks we’ll find more ways to make it easier for users to find relevant match content and join conversations," Twitter said.