Multiple reports on Saturday claimed that Twitter was soon to switch its timeline view to a more Facebook type algorithmic affair. While the news was taken well by a fair amount of users, a few, who call themselves ‘core’ users expressed their outrage about this development.
The new switch in the timeline view isn’t anything new. It was rumoured for a long time and the company was testing the service alongside a handful of users around the world for a few months now. The update is supposedly going to hit global roll out sometime in the next week.
After reports went viral about this development, many users took it upon themselves to make Twitter understand that this isn’t a good idea. Some users stated that they felt betrayed by the web giant trying to become more like Facebook. Reassuring these users was no easy task. So, the big boss himself had to speak to them ‘personally’.
Jack Dorsey, who has been handling the reins of Twitter for almost four months now, today tweeted to assure his users that Twitter’s reverse chronological timeline will not necessarily be going away. And although he didn’t quite talk about the upcoming update and whether or not it will be opt-in, he seems to be quite enthusiastic about the way the social networking site’s timeline looks right now.
Dorsey wrote in a series of tweets:
Hello Twitter! Regarding #RIPTwitter: I want you all to know we’re always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week.
Twitter is live. Twitter is real-time. Twitter is about who & what you follow. And Twitter is here to stay! By becoming more Twitter-y.
Look at “while you were away” at the top of your TL. Tweets you missed from people you follow. Pull to refresh to go back to real-time.
I *love* real-time. We love the live stream. It’s us. And we’re going to continue to refine it to make Twitter feel more, not less, live!
Twitter can help make connections in real-time based on dynamic interests and topics, rather than a static social/friend graph. We get it.
Thank you all for your passion and trust. We will continue to work to earn it, and we will continue to listen, and talk!
