Twitter Rolls Out “While You Were Away” Feature
- Monday, January 5th, 2015
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Twitter has begun rolling out a Facebook-style “Timeline Highlights” feature which pins tweets that have been deemed important to the top of users timelines when they first return to the social network after an absence.
The feature works in a similar manner to Facebooks new feed, and is the first major Twitter feature beyond promoted tweets and adverts to present content in a non-chronological order.
Over 500m tweets are sent a day, with most users following over 100 accounts, making it easy for tweets to get lost in the rolling timeline. The “While You Were Away” feature was first announced as something the company was considering in November.
“Were experimenting with better ways to give you what you come to Twitter for: a snapshot of whats happening,” said Kevin Weil, vice president of product for Twitter. “We can use information like who you follow and what you engage with to surface highlights of what you missed and show those to you as soon as you log back in or come back to the app.”
Currently, the feature only appears to have been rolled out to the Twitter for iOS app, with the first users seeing it in early December, and increasing numbers of users commenting on the feature in the first few days of 2015, with reactions ranging from delight to dismay.