This week, Twitter released its first promoted Moment – a promotion for the Rocky sequel, Creed.  Moments was just introduced to the platform earlier this month and is similar in concept to the upcoming Facebook Notify App but is a compilation of tweets selected by Twitter instead of the user.

Promoted “moments” are being tested as native ads inserted into the Moments newsfeed with selected brand partners, featured for 24 hours and labeled with a Promoted badge. Moments breaks down Twitter’s top headlines into sections like a newspaper.

The tool offers top headlines (think front page) for News, Sports, Entertainment and Fun.  These headlines are listed in a simple newsfeed under each section, and clicking on the headline takes you into the Moment or story for that headline.

On mobile, you scroll through page by page tweets selected by Twitter for that story including full-bleed or full-screen photos, video, vines, and text.  Moments captures stories in classic Twitter, bite-size quotes and images that make for easily consumed content while providing a full multimedia experience that can make powerful and emotional stories come alive.

It’s not clear how Twitter selects the tweets to include on Moments but it isn’t just based on volume of engagement.  Twitter appears to want a diverse view of the Moment and the number of tweets included per Moment vary up to 20+ tweets on the stories I looked at.

Simplifying content is always good and Moments provides a top level filter that can help new users not be overwhelmed with where to start on the platform.  For heavy users, Moments also helps overcome sorting through the volume of tweets that appear in a typical newsfeed.  You can always view all tweets related to a particular story and you can retweet, favorite, follow or share directly from Moments.

As it relates to the local space, a few years ago Twitter experimented with a “Nearby” feature that created a newsfeed of Tweets made within a specific geographic area, but for now it appears promoted Moments is mainly geared towards large advertisers looking for broad reach.

However, on the surface there appears to be a “local” play with Moments that would highlight local news, events, groups and business. This could help capture a local audience and be an entry into locally promoted native ads targeted to that audience.