Digital Marketing News

Twitter’s Testing New Features to Provide a Better Timeline Control

Providing social services which suites all social media users’ expectations and habits is not an easy mission, it is considered to be a complicated task that needs unrelenting, ongoing work, that’s why all social media platforms around the world are updating their services and tools regularly.

Twitter is one of those platforms, that’s continuously trying to provide its users around the world with new updated, effective, and entertaining features that can enhance their experience. Hence, three days ago, Twitter announced in a thread on its support handle that the Twitter’s developers are testing some new tools and features, which enable all users to manage their timeline according to personal preference.

And, here are the complete tweets on the Twitter’s announcement:

1/ We’re working on new ways to give you more control over your timeline. But first, some context: Twitter helps you see what’s happening by showing the best Tweets for you based on your interactions.

2/ We’ve learned that when showing the best Tweets first, people find Twitter more relevant and useful. However, we’ve heard feedback from people who at times prefer to see the most recent Tweets.

3/ Our goal with the timeline is to balance showing you the most recent Tweets with the best Tweets you’re likely to care about, but we don’t always get this balance right.

4/ So, we’re working on providing you with an easily accessible way to switch between a timeline of Tweets that are most relevant for you and a timeline of the latest Tweets. You’ll see us test this in the coming weeks.

5/ Meanwhile, today we updated the “Show the best Tweets first” setting. When off, you’ll only see Tweets from people you follow in reverse chronological order. Previously when turned off, you’d also see “In case you missed it” and recommended Tweets from people you don’t follow.

6/ Our plan is to eventually replace this setting when the easier-to-access switch described above is available. We’ll keep you updated and are listening to your feedback – let us know what you think!

It is noted that these new updates came as Twitter’s aiming to find a new solution to switch back to the chronological timeline, instead of algorithm interference, which stimulated various concerns about Twitter’s algorithm-defined timelines and it still doesn’t cater well to many users. On the other hand, it should be appreciated that over the past year, Twitter did its best to provide an enjoyable platform for all users globally by working on effective features, tools, and options. Only during the past month, Twitter announced the launch of new features and layouts for tweet interactions, which included:

  1. Threaded replies to individual responses, making it easier to see who’s responding to what within tweet reply chains
  2. Color coding for responses from the original tweet poster and/ yourself, highlighting key replies (purple for responses from the original tweeter, blue for you)
  3. Green dots on profile images within chains to indicate when a user is active and spark more real-time engagement (users would have the option to switch off).

Additionally, Twitter also rolled out “Who to Follow.” a new feature that suggests to the Twitter users, accounts that they may want to follow. It’s based on many factors, including the users’ address book contacts, as well as algorithms that make personalized suggestions for the Twitter users. In spite of those entertaining and effective features, Twitter felt it was not enough, so past month, they announced in an official tweet that they are launching audio-only live streams to The Twitter and Periscope platforms, in order to help the users who want to go live in the audio mood only, without appearing on camera when they talk to their friends or their followers.

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