Users who enjoy a social media platform that keeps things in a chronological order – reverse to be specific – find solace in Twitter as the service has maintained that type of listing even as others have moved on to schemes to “surface” content in other ways. That may be changing as soon as next week according to rumors. Sources indicate Twitter may be planning to rollout a new algorithm to replace the reverse chronological timeline.
Twitter has been testing the new algorithm with a small group of users and apparently the feedback has been positive. Like other platforms, the intent appears to be to display tweets at the top of the timeline that users may be more interested in seeing as opposed to a simple time-based scheme.
Sources are not certain whether Twitter will make this change universal for all users or whether an option to use it will be provided while maintaining the traditional chronological listing. Also unclear is whether the new algorithm would apply on all platforms per account or if users could choose chronological on their smartphone and content-based on their desktop or some other combination.
Changes to the display of the timeline is only one change rumored to be in the works for Twitter. After bumping up the character limit to 10,000 for direct messages between users, sources think Twitter may expand the 10,000 character limit to general tweets. With all of these changes, Twitter and CEO Jack Dorsey are trying to walk a fine line between traditionalists who like Twitter just the way it is and making changes that will attract new users.
Would you be interested in a timeline option on Twitter that was something other than reverse chronological?
source: BuzzFeed
via: phoneArena
Mucking up the timeline was what prompted me to close my Facebook account. I doubt twitter will repeat Facebook’s mistakes.