Twitter hires New York Times editor to run Moments

Marcus Mabry will be in charge of Twitter's curation team, choosing what makes it into a Moment

The New York Times is having a bad week when it comes to technology companies. While Amazon is currently battling it out with The Gray Lady, now Twitter just poached one its top employees.

The company has hired Marcus Mabry, the New York Times Editor at Large, to run Moments, its new content creation hub, where be will be overseeing the curation team.

The hire was revealed by Mabry and Twitter via Tweets on Tuesday.

Could not be more excited to join the team at @twitter and @TwitterMoments!

— Marcus Mabry (@marcusmabry) October 20, 2015

We're so excited to welcome @marcusmabrynyt to the @twittermoments team, leading our curation efforts in the US! https://t.co/W8O9Sbylu6

— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) October 20, 2015

Mabry had worked for the Times since 2007, when he started as its International Business Editor, before becoming Political Editor, then Digital Editor and then Editor at Large in December 2013. Before that he spent many years at NewsWeek, in various editor positions.

"We will miss Marcus's news judgment and camaraderie - not to mention his boisterous sense of humor," the Times wrote in a farewell notice.

Twitter debuted Moments, previously called "Project Lightening," earlier this month. It is a feature that is designed to curate content by aggregating Tweets and photos from live events and breaking-news situations.

When Twitter app users see a lightning bolt icon next to their notifications and messages, they will be able to click on and open up a list of curated content that will be continuously updated throughout the day. Content will not just be Tweets, but also full-bleed images and autoplaying videos, Vines, and GIFs It's a more interactive way of getting people to be engaged with content.

Users are also given the ability to follow that Moment, so they can get up to the minute updates. If you're unable to watch the Super Bowl, for example, this is a good way to keep up with what's happening in almost real-time.

Moment will be assembled by Twitter's creation team, while some of Twitter's media partners, including Bleacher Report, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Fox News, Getty Images, Mashable, MLB, NASA, New York Times, Vogue and the Washington Post, will also make their own. Now that team will be headed by Mabry.

Getting someone of Mabry's stature on board will help Moments for a few reasons. It will give the team credibility when it comes to their editorial choices. In addition, Mabry presumably has a good amount of experience is knowing which stories will have the broadest appeal.

Hiring Mabry is just the latest move from Twitter in the last few months to overhaul Twitter's image, while also making it leaner and more appealing to a wider audience.

The biggest of these moves was, of course, dumping CEO Dick Costolo, and bringing back founder Jack Dorsey over the summer. That was followed by the news that the company would be cutting 336 jobs, or 8% of its global workforce. This is the first mass layoff in Twitter's entire history, and the hiring of

Omid Kordestani, former Chief Business Officer at Google, as Twitter's Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors

From a product perspective, there have been reports of the company straying from its original 140 character limit, as well as the launch of Moments.

(Image source: youtube.com)