Twitter modifies the chronological order of the messages
Twitter will begin to select and display the most relevant content for each user, a movement of “cure” that puts an end to the strict chronological order with which structured its “timeline”.
First it was a rumor, then a small experiment, but it is a reality: Twitter put hand to the “timeline” of users to show them relevant tweets, not only a succession of publications ordered by date and time of publication.
The change, which has been criticized by more intensive Twitter users since it began to take shape, will be optional: the social network says that the display of the selected content can be turned off.
The need to reduce noise and make more accessible and attractive platform “micro-blogging” has motivated this maneuver, ending with nearly ten years of sovereignty of the chronological order.
With the changes announced today, the first tweets a user sees will be a selection filtered by an algorithm, not the latest content published by those tweets to those whom he follows. After this compendium helped up by the social network that is not visually different from the rest of the “timeline”, will be shown traditional cascade ordered by publication time.
The number of selected tweets will be variable: there will be many more accounts the user follow. To establish what is relevant, according to sources at Twitter, the algorithm will take into account followed profiles, the popularity of the Tweets and the interactions and the content that is in the interests of each user.
The change will be implemented in several phases: starting today, users who wish to see the selection of relevant content by Twitter may do so by selecting the option in your account settings.
Later, change will be activated by default on all accounts, prior notice to users, who may choose to continue with a “timeline” exclusively chronological. This functionality can be turned off at any time, it highlights the company.
Up to the date, the Twitter users saw the publications of those persons whom they follow for the chronological order in which they were tweeted. In fact, the cascade contents of the “microblogging” network are called “timeline”.
This feature was made a tool of information and news, something that does not want to stop being in their search for the difficult balance between relevance and real time platform.
The “healing” of content is the implicit recognition that some users have a problem when it comes to managing the huge volume of information that moves on Twitter.
New selection algorithm of Tweets, to rescue valuable information that the user may be lost due to the frenetic activity of its “timeline”, it is one further step to reassure investors – as it was the change of the “favorite” by the “i like”, requiring the company to grow in number of users and make easier the management of the platform.
However, Twitter has to tread carefully when introducing changes to attract new users, since the more intensive tweeters are often reluctant to substantial changes in the tool.
In the end, the optional character of the measure – which is implemented on the same day that technology presents its quarterly results – is an intermediate output with which satisfy both intensive users as to the most novice who feel lost in an unruly stream of information.