Twitter now lets users follow specific topics
An article from Social Media Today reports that Twitter is launching the new Topics, a section which enables users to follow specific topics (i.e. sports, entertainment, technology), and have related topics appear within their Twitter home stream.
According to Twitter, here's how it works:
Topics is designed to improve tweet discovery, consequently boosting user engagement and making it easier for them to be updated with their interests, while also eliminating unwanted tweets which are not of particular interest.
Twitter initially rolled out topic streams to a small group in August this year, but will now fully launch the feature on November 13 to cover more than 300 topics.
Politics however, won't be among the topic interests, and in a report by The Verge:
Twitter will use machine learning and actual human curation to formulate topic listings, while editors will work on filtering out unwanted content.
I spend more time on Twitter than on Facebook, and I do think this will let Twitter become more immersive because I can finally read tweets which are relevant to my interests, hence I don't have to manually fire up a search query. I also like that political topics will be filtered out, which means I see better content and less junk.
What do you think?
According to Twitter, here's how it works:
| "On your Home timeline and in search results, you'll see prompts to follow topics. Tap the Follow button in the prompt and we'll personalize your Twitter experience based on your interest in this topic. We may also match you with other topics that we think you are interested in based on your profile and activity, such as the Tweets you view or like." |
Twitter initially rolled out topic streams to a small group in August this year, but will now fully launch the feature on November 13 to cover more than 300 topics.
Politics however, won't be among the topic interests, and in a report by The Verge:
| "One topic you won't find included in the initial batch: politics. The company tells me it's sensitive to the potential unintended consequences of its algorithms offering additional amplification to tweets about sensitive subjects, and so it's sticking to lighter fare to start." |
I spend more time on Twitter than on Facebook, and I do think this will let Twitter become more immersive because I can finally read tweets which are relevant to my interests, hence I don't have to manually fire up a search query. I also like that political topics will be filtered out, which means I see better content and less junk.
What do you think?
