Twitter will automatically turn on this for users over time through a notification and take feedback on it to improve the product.
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The fall from 307 million monthly active users to 305 million is relatively small but it’s still something that Twitter hopes to address.
Revenue rose 48.3 percent to $710.5 million in the quarter ended December 31, and net loss shrank to $90.2 million, or 13 cents per share, down from $125.4 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.
Twitter forecast that it would make between $595 million and $610 million in revenue for its next quarter, which is Q1. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tried to assure investors during the company’s earnings call that usage numbers have “bounced back” to Q3 levels in January, and CFO Anthony Noto attribute some of the Q4 declines to the fact that Twitter chose to send fewer emails to its users.
Since it’s inception, Twitter has always posted tweets in a chronological order, but the company is unveiling a new formula that will push more important tweets to the top of thje timeline viewing order.
Under its new system, Twitter will use a complicated sorting system to give priority placement to tweets that the company considers most relevant or important to its users. They said using a customized, or algorithmic, timeline – similar to Facebook’s News Feed – meant Twitter would lose one of its signature features. Note that this is not a compulsory feature, users can choose whether or not to opt in into it. This feature can be enabled by going to Account Settings→ Content→ Timeline and toggling the “Show me the best tweets” box on desktop.
On the brighter side, Twitter’s 320 million MAUs are a 9 percent increase from a year before.
Analysts say Twitter’s stock price, which has reached record lows, is unlikely to rise until the company shows significant user growth. While popular with media outlets, politicians and celebrities, Twitter has never been able to match the mass market appeal of Facebook which, at 1.59 billion users, is five times the size of Twitter. “We think timeline is a big part of that”.
Dorsey, who helped start Twitter Inc. almost 10 years ago, is hoping the revised presentation of tweets will prove more engaging to newcomers without alienating the messaging service’s most loyal users.
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The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users posting 340 million tweets a day in 2012.
