Digital Paw Print
Twitter Inc. and its timeline are out of order
Twitter’s going to start looking a whole lot different, if you so choose.
The social media giant, located less than 30 miles from San Ramon, is making a big change to the timeline: it’s now offering a feature that will serve up tweets based on user interests rather than by chronology.
The feature can be accessed in your settings under the “Content” section, (it’s called “Show me the best tweets first”). After a short amount of time, Twitter will start displaying tweets you’ll most likely be interested in reading.
The tweets displayed at the top of your timeline are based on the content you Like, Retweet, and who you follow.
I’ve tested the feature myself, and it does seem promising.
It uses the same algorithm that powers the “While you were away” function, which displays tweets you missed while not using the service. Twitter will display tweets it thinks you’ll like, and you just might actually “Like” them.
But this new addition to Twitter won’t be optional for long. The San Francisco-based company is planning to enable this feature by default after a few weeks, and make adjustments based on user feedback.
But fret not, my anti-change Twitter protesters! Put down your pitchforks, and extinguish your torches! After it is enabled by default, Twitter will give users the ability to opt out of the feature, restoring your timeline to the normal, chronological format.
This change comes at a crucial time for the company. Investors have been relatively unhappy with Twitter’s performance over the past year. As a result, Twitter’s stocks have slowly slid to as low as $14.40 per share.
It’s especially tough, considering Facebook, their rival in social media, has seen growth that makes Twitter quake in its nest. Facebook, according to Statista, has over 1 billion active users, whilst Twitter has only 555 million. Facebook’s stock has jumped to more than $100 per share over the past year.
It’s been no secret that Twitter has been scrambling to find ways to attract users to its service.
From changing “Favorites” to “Likes” and even considering bumping the 140 character limit to 10,000, it seems the company is desperate to get back on track.