Twitter tweaks its timeline in pursuit of more users

The microblogger has been held back by what he called “broken windows” – or flaws in the user experience that can be fixed relatively easily.

It’s true. The company now says it’s got a new algorithm to predict which tweets you might not want to miss. Based on that analysis, Twitter will begin featuring tweets that it believes will be most likely to capture a user’s interest at the top of the timeline.

The company said it made significant progress in scaling the total number of advertisers to 130,000 in Q4, up 90pc on past year.

Twitter is tweaking its timeline.

Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) reported its first quarter with no growth in users since it went public, stoking fresh concerns on how long it will take for the company to reverse the trend.

If Jack Dorsey is righting Twitter’s ship, it’s not reflected in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report.

Twitter is also expected to name as many as two new board members. Revenue rose 48 percent from the previous year to $710 million, providing some measure of hope that the service can still be turned into a viable of business.

The number of active Twitter users failed to rise in the last three months of 2015, the social network has reported, as it continues to struggle.

Investors hammered the company’s stock on the news, with shares briefly falling more than 11% in after-hours trading, then rebounding to a 5% loss.

Perceptions of Twitter are souring on both Main Street and Wall Street, according to Marcus Messner, an associate journalism professor and social media specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Hello Twitter! Regarding #RIPTwitter: I want you all to know we’re always listening.

She has noted that the Ferguson protests were – at least in her own news feed – initially obscured by Facebook’s algorithm in favor of the popular “Ice Bucket Challenge” videos and other content.

It was a rumor that had many Twitter old-timers up in arms: Twitter is changing its signature structure of real-time posts in reverse chronological order.

WhatsApp now has more than 1 billion monthly users while Instagram has more than 400 million, including 100 million added during the first nine months of a year ago. However, Hyde said, if the algorithm surfaced more relevant content for users, it could significantly help them manage the hundreds or thousands of tweets that endlessly scroll by.

The move to have tweets paid for by advertisers surface higher in individuals’ timelines is expected to make it more likely users will respond to ads.

“We have some really weird rules”, Dorsey admitted. But you can tell by the time stamp that they aren’t in real time. “I think this could draw some people back”.