It could be due to some major changes on the site.
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The stalled user growth has led Twitter to re-think many of its fundamentals, including rumours of doing away with its character limit and this week introducing a partially algorithmic timeline.
The “Show me the best tweets first” feature is available to people accessing Twitter using a Web browser or applications on mobile devices powered by Apple or Android software. Twitter is a company that relies heavily on growth in its user base; its total in Q2 was flat from last quarter at 320 million registered users and up 9 percent from 288 million a year ago.
In the coming weeks, Twitter users can turn on the feature in their settings. “Here’s how it works”. For instance, a virtual reality enthusiast who follows a lot of developers and news reporters of the technology will see a lot more virtual reality-related tweets at the top of their timeline.
In a letter to shareholders discussing the earnings report, Twitter also discussed the efforts of increasing the number of users and said that it was dedicated towards making the service less confusing. Over the next couple of days, Twitter will prompt you to enable the option.
Twitter’s user growth as well as metrics such as how often a user signs in and scrolls through the service are important because investors believe it indicates how big its advertising business can eventually become. Below the top Tweets, the feed will pick up in reverse chronological order as it always has.
The “while you were away” feature will still exists.
The little blue bird released its latest financial results Wednesday evening, and while it beat investors’ expectations on earnings, the company reported that its user base shrank slightly during the winter.
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But a significant portion of these users only utilize the service via SMS text message, a version called SMS Fast Followers and focused on developing markets. Twitter will still take the opportunity to monetize this new product, serving up promoted tweets right in the middle of the tweets you care about most.
