Twitter has made a dramatic product change, saying it will recast the way it displays tweets by customising them to individual users, instead of uniformly displaying tweets in reverse chronological order. The rumor claimed the stream was going to become algorithmic like Facebook, but it appears now that was overblown. “For instance, Dorsey said that the “.@name” syntax, which is used when a user wants his or her followers to see the reply tweet as well, is broken. How it determines that is not entirely clear. “Then rest of tweets will be displayed underneath, also in reverse chronological order, as always”.
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Twitter announced earlier Wednesday it was revamping its timeline, allowing the “best” tweets to rise to the top, despite warnings of a revolt from members loyal to the real-time flow of the messaging platform.
Users can expect to see this new features on their timelines in the days to come.
“You follow hundreds of people on Twitter – maybe thousands – and when you open Twitter, it can feel like you’ve missed some of their most important Tweets”, Twitter Senior Engineering Manager Mike Jahr said in the announcement.
Twitter stock has lost more than 50 percent of its value since last July, when co-founder Jack Dorsey took over as chief executive.
Twitter’s user base has essentially remained stagnant at 300 million in 2015, raising concerns about future revenue growth.
How does the new feature work?
So far, users have reacted in a big way, with the hashtag #RIPTwitter trending right straight the news was announced. Excluding certain expenses, Twitter said it would have earned 16 cents a share.
For now “best tweets first” is an opt-in feature, which means you don’t have to use it. And it might not be that different from what you’re already seeing under the “While you were away” section of your timeline.
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With so many things Twitter has been trying to do, which also includes expanding its limited character restriction for tweets, why is it still unable to move the needle?
