On Wednesday, Twitter launched its “improved timeline”, essentially introducing an algorithm-based timeline, altering users top view of their timeline based on their previous Twitter activity data. Twitter’s suggestion that it is an improvement to its original timeline comes from the fact that it pushes, objectively, the most “important” tweets to the top of a user’s timeline and helps to determine what it is that might be the best content to display for any given user. Below the newly introduced section of top tweets, however, will be the typical reverse-chronological timeline most users will be used to. Upon the news that Twitter would be introducing the new algorithm, outraged users responded over the weekend with a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #RIPTwitter, aimed at the changes, in hopes that the social networking service will remain the same. Unbeknownst to them, however, is that fact the the newly introduced setting can be turned on and off within the settings menu. Furthermore, it seems the feature change may not be as different as most first believed, should it be left on, as the curated tweets will also be displayed in reverse-chronological order, will the most recent tweets shown at the top, Twitter confirmed. Though it knows that keeping its core base of regular users happy is important for its longevity, with the change, Twitter is looking to lure new users, seemingly unafraid of altering the look and feel of the service that has made it so unique. By changing the interface and effectively expanding itself, Twitter has the potential to appeal to a more wide-spread audience, especially the millions that use sites like Facebook daily. Prior to the timeline change, Twitter announced its plans to remove the restriction limiting user to 140 characters, considering the possibility of open it up to a whopping 10,000 character limit in the not so distant future. With the change to the reverse-chronological time still so fresh and a character limit change still only on the horizon, it’s too soon to tell if these gambles will pay off for Twitter. As of right now, the changes have only earned the company negative feedback from its devout veteran user base, happy with the way Twitter had been operating until this point and uninterested in any drastic changes. The ultimate goal for Twitter however, is ensuring that users continue signing up and logging in and that that number keeps steadily growing.
12th February 2016
