Twitter's New Algorithm
It was announced Sunday (Feb. 7th) night that Twitter is going to be rolling out a new algorithm later this week for how tweets appear in timelines, and there have certainly been mixed reactions.
For now, not much is known about what the new timeline will look like, but there are several guesses. The most prevalent idea is that it will be similar to the current "While you were away" function that Twitter currently has in place. It is assumed that this is intended for less frequent uses, so that they can get caught up on the "big" tweets that they missed over the period they were away from Twitter.
A lot of users are worried that this is going to change the entire format of the timeline and make it all about the popular tweets, a change from the precious "chronological timeline" that Twitter currently holds. However, it seems as though this change is more than likely going to be an optional one, with the normal timeline no more than a refresh away.
Sometimes Twitter can be confusing for new users; when I first tried to get an account I was so overwhelmed that I immediately deleted it, so this new algorithm may serve to help with the learning curve.
Personally, I'll wait and see what this update actually brings before passing judgement, but I do know that in order for tweets to get "popular" enough to show up on a timeline they have to be seen, so it would seem as though the mixture of the chronological timeline and the "While you were away" feature makes the most sense.
For now, not much is known about what the new timeline will look like, but there are several guesses. The most prevalent idea is that it will be similar to the current "While you were away" function that Twitter currently has in place. It is assumed that this is intended for less frequent uses, so that they can get caught up on the "big" tweets that they missed over the period they were away from Twitter.
A lot of users are worried that this is going to change the entire format of the timeline and make it all about the popular tweets, a change from the precious "chronological timeline" that Twitter currently holds. However, it seems as though this change is more than likely going to be an optional one, with the normal timeline no more than a refresh away.
Sometimes Twitter can be confusing for new users; when I first tried to get an account I was so overwhelmed that I immediately deleted it, so this new algorithm may serve to help with the learning curve.
Personally, I'll wait and see what this update actually brings before passing judgement, but I do know that in order for tweets to get "popular" enough to show up on a timeline they have to be seen, so it would seem as though the mixture of the chronological timeline and the "While you were away" feature makes the most sense.
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