Twitter is set make a big change to it platform next week according to a report on the BuzzFeed . The micro blogging site is set to introduce a new algorithmic timeline, which will present tweets on the basis of what Twitter thinks its users want to view instead of the chronological feed it offers right now. This comes at a time there are reports that suggest it will allow users to type of tweets longer than its trademark 140 characters.
The algorithmic approach sounds similar to what Facebook offers its users. The report doesn’t confirm whether this would be forced upon users or will be an optional change.
Critics complain that Twitter is a noisy network and unearthing popular content can be difficult at times. This could simplify matters as Twitter could theoretically have the ability to surface more content that’s trending and is popular with its users.
On the flipside, this will irk a lot of users who like the chronological timeline as they can keep of track of things they’ve missed.
Twitter has been making multiple changes to its core experience ever since its co-founder Jack Dorsey retook the reigns as CEO back in July. First, Dorsey replaced the favourites term with likes. There are rumours that Twitter is considering revoking the 140 character limit on tweets and allowing some long-form posts with a character limit of 10,000 characters.
The algorithmic approach could also be a part of a larger plan to introduce longer tweets as long posts in a chronological order would further dilute trending content. An algorithmic approach could offset that problem.
For long, Twitter has been a social network that it either loved or hated by users. It hasn’t managed the ubiquity that Facebook has managed over the years, but these changes could help gain a new set of users.
