“@Kantrowitz: Here we go: Algorithmic timeline coming to Twitter next week. https://t.co/Uf0IqultXa
Twitter is about to be as popular as MySpace.
Twitter is about to be as popular as MySpace.
Algorithmic timeline coming to Twitter next week
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
I don't know about anyone else, but I swear that I used to spend a lot more time on Facebook back when the feed was chronological. I was obsessed - wouldn't stop reading updates until I was caught up with everyone. Now, I come to the end of what Facebook decided was important to show me relatively quickly.
I mean, I assume they have done exhaustive studies on it, so I'm probably an outlier.
I mean, I assume they have done exhaustive studies on it, so I'm probably an outlier.
Maybe not. Maybe they get more ad revenue this way even if people spend less time on Facebook.
I don't get this. What does there ad algorithm have to with how they present user data? I'd think they would want to keep people online as long as possible and feed them targeted ads accordingly.
I don't know their ad algorithm, but I expect that they get paid for click-throughs. If they get more click-throughs with a non-chronological feed, they get more revenue.
Put it this way--I doubt they'd intentionally choose a feed layout that gave them less revenue, and I doubt they'd stick with one they stumbled on if it was costing them money.
Put it this way--I doubt they'd intentionally choose a feed layout that gave them less revenue, and I doubt they'd stick with one they stumbled on if it was costing them money.
The fascinating part is reading the Twitter feed of @bhcarpenter, a senior Twitter engineer. His initial tweet: "Seriously people. We aren't idiots. Quit speculating about how we're going to "ruin Twitter"
Followed by:
Wow people on Twitter are mean
And:
@SeadogDriftwood yeah maybe? I didn't really expect this to expand beyond my direct followers, but that's the power of Twitter I guess!
Raises a lot of questions, mostly: do Twitter staff actually use the platform? If Twitter's senior iOS engineer has never before experienced a tweet going out on blast unexpectedly, and a stream of mean responses, no wonder Twitter has been slow to recognize that ease of being harassed has been so detrimental to the Twitter experience.
Followed by:
Wow people on Twitter are mean
And:
@SeadogDriftwood yeah maybe? I didn't really expect this to expand beyond my direct followers, but that's the power of Twitter I guess!
Raises a lot of questions, mostly: do Twitter staff actually use the platform? If Twitter's senior iOS engineer has never before experienced a tweet going out on blast unexpectedly, and a stream of mean responses, no wonder Twitter has been slow to recognize that ease of being harassed has been so detrimental to the Twitter experience.
This isn't right. In fact, the opposite is true. The goal here is obviously to give people access to the most relevant tweets at a given moment, based on what the people you follow are tweeting about and engaging around. Twitter's entire goal going forward is to be a platform that's centered around events. The algorithm will very likely just emphasize Super Bowl related tweets during the Super Bowl instead of relying on the accounts you follow to provide you that in real time. In other words, if you follow 10 accounts, and 7 of them are tweeting about the super bowl and one is tweeting about a Doctor Who marathon, Twitter's going to rank the Super Bowl tests as more relevant.
They've actually been doing this for 6 months now, with the "while you were away feature."
You know that companies aren't always smart right? There's a pic of New Coke upthread.
Yeah, I don't want that. I follow a specific mix of accounts for a specific mix of news/info. I don't want twitter deciding what it more important just because something happened.
My political timeline will suddenly be swamped by #TRUMP.
I'm assuming Tweetdeck will retain the chronological layout?
I monitor Twitter for my govt agency, it'll be a huge pain in my ass if this flip is not reversible.
I monitor Twitter for my govt agency, it'll be a huge pain in my ass if this flip is not reversible.
New Coke ended up being a great deal for Coke because it caused people to remember they loved the old Coke and clamored for it. Anyway, Facebook is a lot of things but it's most certainly and in no way run by dumb people. They know what they are doing at Facebook.
Twitter, on the other hand, has a dearth of talent at the top and it shows. Their interface is really lousy, and it's a pain to use and there is no way around that fact. But we'll see about this change.
To that point, people are picking up the feed of that Twitter guy I mentioned above:
"In five short tweets, guy shows how Twitter employees don't use/understand their own product"
Agreed that the interface is lousy. Forcing extra clicks on your users (by making each tweet a modal dialog box) was silly. Doing so to force more ads under the newly popped-up tweets is desperate and disrespectful. The web client has always been a mess. I still don't know what value a Moment brings over a simple search.
But I disagree that there's no way around it. There are several excellent Twitter clients. I use Tweetbot on Mac and Mobile. I use EasyChirp on Windows. I know people who swear by Hootsuite. The $20 it costs for Tweetbot has been the best money I've ever spent on an apps. I've never had a Twitter ad injected into my timeline. I've never seen a curated or promoted Tweet. (Of course, some features aren't quickly or ever supported. Tweetbot just this week changed Favorites to Likes, and I don't believe Twitter has released the API to make any client able to do Group DMs). But apps bring useful features, like mute filters and a "night mode" reading. I understand that it might be a lot to ask users to pay for an app (and some people won't do it to use a "free" service), but there are great ones and they're worth it precisely because the Twitter web client is stupid and the mobile client is cluttered and constantly changing.
If third-party apps can continue serving the traditional Twitter timeline, then this is much ado about nothing.
We aren't idiots people! We only took a huge amount of Investment money, went IPO and have no real solid plan on how to make any money!
But while everybody's freaking out assuming the algorithm will be exactly the same as Facebook's, they missed the fact that the "while you were away" feature was basically a beta of this change, and nobody said a word about it. You're going to login to your timeline, see 4-5 tweets about #Trump if that's what the majority of the people you follow are talking about that day, and then you'll see 4-5 tweets about Henry Owens, and if you don't engage with that content the most likely set up is that you'll scroll past and end up back at your chronological timeline.
I think people are freaking out needlessly. The notion that you suddenly wont have access to the content you want flies in the face of everything Twitter's done on the advertising side over the last year. Their advertising product has made it easier to reach niche audiences, not harder, and I would be shocked if the new algorithm was designed to withhold content. They've been running tests around highlighting certain content for years now, and nobody seemed to care until they made they made the announcement that those tests gave them the engagement results they wanted. Hell, they probably could have just introduced this tomorrow without anybody noticing.
I've hated the while you were away since it started, hit no to Did you like this? Every time it comes up and complained to a friend who is a major developer there.
I think you're insane if you think people wouldn't have noticed. I don't blame Twitter for gasping for financial air and I don't blame the users for not liking what they are doing.
There will be a new alternative if it goes down in flames. GeoCities, MySpace, Usenet, Aol and others all ruled at one point.
When was that picture shot? I haven't seen New Coke on the shelf at my local grocery store lately.
They didn't stick with New Coke when they figured out it was costing them money. You made my point for me.
You can. This is the only way I can see Twitter being useful for me going forward.
instead of following 100s of ppl, I created multiple lists by topic (although it's a pain to access them)
there are a lot of neat features on Twitter, but it's too bad its product team can't surface them - power users find workarounds to get what we want out of it
I think an algorithmic timeline, implemented correctly, might work in improving engagement from existing users. But if that's the core of the strategy for fixing Twitter's decline, it doesn't seem to square with the main issues: 1) new users find Twitter bewildering; 2) if you're a woman or minority on Twitter, you're often signing up for harassment and abuse; 3) UX is bad (and can we have an edit button please?)
You can do PPC or pay by impression. Pay by impression is exactly why they're willing to make end users suffer. There's obviously enough ROI to make losing customers profitable.
Until investors stop investing in database size opposed to actual products with marketability, this shit will keep happening. I worked at a startup that was purchased for $300+mm with no real goto market plan, but having 1 million (free) users worldwide made it too juicy for investors to pass up.
Here's more on the algorithm:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/time-is-a-construct-anyway#.npEx1A1wd
"It won’t be a heavy-handed change. The algorithmically-selected tweets will make up the first few messages people see when they fire up Twitter. A pull-to-refresh action will, as usual, bring up more tweets in Twitter’s standard reverse-chronological order. The algorithm will be opt-in at first: Users will have to turn it on themselves initially. However, Twitter says it will turn the feature on for everyone in the “coming weeks.” There will be an option to turn it off."
Feels like much ado about nothing to me. Basically a more official version of "while you were away," and users who don't want this don't have to use it
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/time-is-a-construct-anyway#.npEx1A1wd
"It won’t be a heavy-handed change. The algorithmically-selected tweets will make up the first few messages people see when they fire up Twitter. A pull-to-refresh action will, as usual, bring up more tweets in Twitter’s standard reverse-chronological order. The algorithm will be opt-in at first: Users will have to turn it on themselves initially. However, Twitter says it will turn the feature on for everyone in the “coming weeks.” There will be an option to turn it off."
Feels like much ado about nothing to me. Basically a more official version of "while you were away," and users who don't want this don't have to use it
I've been making comparisons between my mobile app and desktop feeds. My mobile app has been curating overnight tweets into the While You Were Away section, while the desktop feed does not. Anyone know how to stop the the mobile timeline from creating the While You Were Away section?
Wow this algorithmic timeline sucks. I had forgot you had to opt out, but over the last couple weeks twitter has been unusable with it. If they ever remove the opt out without vastly improving it, I'll be done with Twitter.