Social media site Twitter will begin using an algorithm-driven system that will filter users' feeds, the company CFO suggested at a recent financial conference.
Namely, the tweaks would allow for better search accuracy, and Tweets would be organized in users' feeds to be more timely and relevant, CFO Anthony Noto said at a tech conference in NYC, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“If you think about our search capabilities we have a great data set of topical information about topical tweets,” Noto said. “The hierarchy within search really has to lend itself to that taxonomy.” Noto said this prompts the need for “an algorithm that delivers the depth and breadth of the content we have on a specific topic and then eventually as it relates to people."
These features are reminiscent of Facebook, where news enters a feed based on its popularity and relevance to certain topics. As it stands now, Twitter organizes Tweets in a reverse-chronological order, grouping the newest Tweets at the top of the feed. For users that don't have Twitter permanently open, this creates gaps in their timelines.
"[This] isn’t the most relevant experience for a user,” Noto said. “Putting that content in front of the person at that moment in time is a way to organize that content better.”
These changes have already started to creep into the site –– users can now see Tweets from people they don't even follow. The idea of filtered feeds has even led some users to question Twitter's legitimacy. Whereas before the incoming news was raw, certain people think the new changes could constitute a sort of censorship.
Other features mentioned in the possible update include an easy-to-join chat room. Regardless, any of these changes could impact Twitter users, old and new alike. We've reached out for comment from a Twitter representative, and will update this story accordingly.
