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Twitter's new timeline feature

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Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#51

Post by DangerousPie »

thenduks wrote: post #46
DangerousPie wrote: post #21

I know I'm going against the grain here but I think a feature like this actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I am not as heavy a Twitter user as other people here, but I hate how easily I can miss important tweets if I just don't check my feed for a few hours. Since I am also on a different time zone than many people I follow, I end up having to catch up on hours of tweets every morning by scrolling down the page for…

Have you considered using a client that doesn't stay scrolled all the way to the top (TweetBot has a toggle for "pin to top" for example)? I would find what you're describing pretty much a deal breaker in my use of twitter, so I use this feature and literally read every tweet from everyone I follow. When I open twitter (and it syncs between desktop/mobile), I'm at the same spot I was when I opened it last.

That would help with the scrolling issue, but it would still force me to read through tons of irrelevant tweets to find the few interesting ones...

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#52

Post by swah »

ponyous wrote: post #6

> To check it out now, just go into the timeline section of your settings and choose 'Show me the best Tweets first'. Am I the only one who can't find timeline section in settings? http://i.imgur.com/kKedYcn.png

Its under Content on the main page I think (but I still don't see the option).

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#53

Post by Touche »

benten10 wrote: post #36

As the resident Twitter fanboy, I'd like to point out something most people here (and elsewhere) who support the change seem to be missing out. We (Twitter users) are not as much worried about our stream being polluted, as much as OUR tweets not being seen. Currently, as long as people are online, there's a certain guarantee that they will see it. You don't need to reach out for popularity, because they'll see it any…

You're not a profitable demographic for them. The demographic they want is those who use social media primarily to talk to friends. That demo doesn't have dual monitors running all day with twitter in one window. They want the demo that will click on their ads, you probably ignore them.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#54

Post by Touche »

dexwiz wrote: post #32
Touche wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if Twitter would market this to individual users instead of just companies. They won't, they don't want user's pennies. It's hyper growth or bust.

At 300 million active users (exact numbers debated), if even 1% paid $10 a month for promoted Tweets, that's 30 million a month. That's not pennies. King Games and Supercell (Clash of Clans), have shown that microtransactions are a profitable enterprise when you abuse human reward systems. What better reward to abuse than attention?

> That's not pennies.

To Twitter's shareholders, yes it is. You can make that much with just a few large marketing deals, that's their end game.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#55

Post by blakesterz »

seanwilson wrote: post #44
blakesterz wrote: post #11

>> Here's how it works. You flip on the feature in your settings; then when you open Twitter after being away for a while... That's perfect, I need to flip it on, just how things like this should be added to anything!

> That's perfect, I need to flip it on, just how things like this should be added to anything! I really don't have much of an opinion about the Twitter feature, but if a new feature appears in an app that is going to be beneficial to most users, making it off by default guarantees the vast majority of users will never see it.

> making it off by default guarantees the vast majority of users will never see it.

Good point. I suppose if I'm looking at it as a user I want to be able to turn on new things myself. If I'm looking at it as a creator/developer I want people to use this new awesome thing I spent all this time and money creating that I think will improve things for them.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#57

Post by lukewrites »

I think twitter would be better off embracing lists.

I follow relatively few people because of the firehose effect. My attitude towards the people I follow is that I like seeing their tweets, but I don't really care if I miss them. News would be a good example of this. It's great to get news or sports tweets in the moment, but they're probably not tweets I'm going to go back through later to find out what happened.

On the other hand, I have a number of lists, whose members I do not follow, but whose members tweets I do want to see. I probably spend more time in these lists than I do on my timeline. The lists are for specific types of information ("must reads", "python", "humor"). The more focused (fewer people in) the list, the more I value not missing the tweets.

The twitter app makes lists very inconvenient to get to, which is too bad. I like the moments feature, but wind up using Tweetbot (or another alternative app) because I want easy access to my lists.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#58

Post by DangerousPie »

benten10 wrote: post #36

As the resident Twitter fanboy, I'd like to point out something most people here (and elsewhere) who support the change seem to be missing out. We (Twitter users) are not as much worried about our stream being polluted, as much as OUR tweets not being seen. Currently, as long as people are online, there's a certain guarantee that they will see it. You don't need to reach out for popularity, because they'll see it any…

Fair enough, but I'd argue that if Twitter ever wants to become profitable (and sustainable) it needs to start attracting more casual users. And those casual users don't want to scroll through pages of irrelevant tweets just to find the one or two interesting ones that might be hidden in there.

And to be honest, the kind of user you describe in your post sounds like someone I wouldn't want to follow in the first place. The signal to noise ratio would just be too low. At least with this new algorithm I might follow them and catch the occasional popular tweet from them.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#59

Post by dwightgunning »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #40
majewsky wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate "While you were away" with a passion, especially the part where (on mobile) after dismissing it, it asks you "Did you like this?", yet it can't take a hint after the 20th "No".

I've come to suspect that it's asking me whether I liked the tweets , not the feature . So every time I tell it "I hate this", it thinks I actually dislike the people and tweets, which is actually the opposite.

I have NFI how to interpret it either.

Which begs the question of what they're doing with the data.

The mind boggles.

Re: Twitter's new timeline feature

#60

Post by huskyr »

What i have been doing for years to fix the 'missing important tweets' problem: create a list with the most important people, and set that as your main timeline. The official client doesn't have this feature, but third-party clients like Tweetbot and Echofon do. Works for me.

I don't really understand why Twitter doesn't simply re-use an already working mechanism (lists) that they have neglected for quite a while. Maybe they could autofill a list with suggestions ("important people" or something) and present that as an alternative timeline.

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