Andre Yoskowitz
6 Feb 2016 18:15
Yesterday, news broke that Twitter was preparing to launch a new 'algorithmic timeline' which would reorder your timeline in levels of popularity and importance based on their algorithm.
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. Twitter can help make connections in real-time based on dynamic interests and topics, rather than a static social/friend graph. We get it.
For example, a popular post from 5 hours ago might show up on top of a brand new tweet from 1 minute ago based on the algo.
Fans of the service went into an uproar, even getting #RIPTwitter trending for most of the day. CEO Jack Dorsey tried to stop the all-out revolt by posting this morning but he did not deny the report. In fact, other media outlets have posted evidence that the new timeline is coming, and as rumored, as soon as this month.
Here were Dorsey's tweets, which basically tell users to relax:
Twitter will have to do better than a timeline change that nobody seems to like if they want to stop investors from fleeing their stock that has fallen 70 percent in the last two years.