How news apps can 'deep-link' with Twitter Cards feature

News apps Circa and Breaking News are set to take advantage of Twitter's new "deep-linking" Cards feature after the updates were greeted with widespread praise on Tuesday.

The changes allow users to link directly to apps or the app-store from tweets – a development hailed as a "game-changer" by Circa's co-founder Matt Galligan.

"Within Circa, readers are able to share our stories to their Twitter followers," he told Journalism.co.uk. "Those tweets come along with a Twitter Card currently that shows off the story that's being shared, as well as an image and summary.

"We've already implemented the new Twitter Card features and that will now allow readers that have Circa installed to go from a tweet mentioning a Circa story, right to that story within the app. Additionally, people seeing tweets that contain Circa stories will be able to download our app right from the Twitter app."

Galligan said that Circa, which presents news for mobile using only the "atomic elements" of a story, sees users share stories via Twitter on a regular basis. He said the fact that the new version of Cards will allow users to download the app far more readily was an "exciting" development.

"Because news never stops, our readers are continually tweeting out interesting stories – it's just that now those tweets can turn into downloads," he said.

Breaking News began life as a Twitter account before shifting to mobile and as such is in strong position to take advantage of the new developments as general manager, Cory Bergman, explained.

"We've always believed that a strong social presence is a competitive advantage in the challenging world of app distribution," he said. "We're excited that Twitter has launched a product that enables us to leverage our @breakingnews account in a natural, user-friendly way to drive more attention to our Breaking News apps. We're already at work on integration."

Twitter announced the changes at a developer meet-up on Tuesday and described the changes as "a new feature that closes the loop between content creation, content discovery and app downloads" in a statement by platform developer Jason Costa. In the post Costa also outlines the "new types of Twitter Cards" which have also been made available.

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