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I know I'm going against the grain here but I think a feature like this actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I am not as heavy a Twitter user as other people h

I know I'm going against the grain here but I think a feature like this actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I am not as heavy a Twitter user as other people here, but I hate how easily I can miss important tweets if I just don't check my feed for a few hours. Since I am also on a different time zone than many people I follow, I end up having to catch up on hours of tweets every morning by scrolling down the page for ages. Otherwise, I can easily miss extremely relevant/interesting things. If this feature allows me to quickly get an overview over the most interesting tweets (and I can turn it off when I am following the feed more closely) that's great!

talideon 11y ago
I don't think people care so much about the addition of anything so much as the lack of any possibility of permanently turning it off. At least in this case, it's optional, but the related 'stuff you might have missed' 'feature' isn't. I personally really hate this kind of thing as it clutters up my feed, and it never gives anything I care about. The value of Twitter for me come from the reverse-chronological feed, not this kind of thing.
coldpie 11y ago
Yeah, this seems like it might be useful for people who follow loads of accounts. I follow about 40, and I want to read literally everything all of them say. So long as it doesn't fuck up that use-case (e.g. by remaining optional), I'm fine with it.
- majewsky 11y ago
  Seconded. I regularly prune the list of accounts I follow, so that I don't spend too much time with Twitter but still get to read everything from those people that I find interesting.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I agree. It seems to me that Twitter is the wrong tool to use if you're trying to communicate important things that must not be missed, or if you're trying to read the same.
- yolesaber 11y ago
  That's what lists are for. I follow over 400 people but have them segmented into lists and its never unmanageable for me.
  - davidpatrick 11y ago
    I feel like lists need more attention. It is such a pain to navigate to on mobile. A lot of people don't even know they exist.
    - yolesaber 11y ago
      Agreed. Rather than dragging users kicking and screaming into an algorithmic timeline, why not play up the strengths of features they already built? Especially since lists allow you to target a user more directly - you can analyze the accounts in the list and get a rough estimate of what the category is - and could generate more revenue for them. Twitter would be really really cool if you could have your lists and then swipe through them like you do with the "Moments" feature (which is awful)
    - coldpie 11y ago
      You're right. I have never heard of "lists" on Twitter. I do use a third party client, Twidere. I wonder if it supports the feature.
  - wluu 11y ago
    Yeah, Twitter lists are what has kept Twitter sane for me. Coupled with a decent twitter client (I use TweetBot on iOS) that supports lists in an easy to use way. I actually use Facebook the same way too.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Yeah, this seems like it might be useful for people who follow loads of accounts. Yeah, I'd probably like this. I follow a LOT of people (right at the limit of how many you can follow) and I never expect to read every tweet. I just expect to check Twitter every now and then, and find a few useful / interesting nuggets of news. And occasionally I do a #hashtag search if I want to catch up on a specific topic. So, for me, this kind of feature makes a lot of sense, as long as the algorithm does a good job of picking out the "good stuff". It may not be for everybody, but I can see this being valuable for at least some percentage of Twitter users.
tfgg 11y ago
I agree. I, and I suspect quite a lot of their users, stopped using Twitter for quite a while because the velocity was just too high, the signal wasn't good enough. The stuff you might have missed feature has actually made me use it much more, now I can actually catch those quality tweets. I'm sure someone is going to tell me that I should unfollow more people, but that seems like a pretty crude and destructive method to try to increase the quality of my feed. I still want to see good quality tweets from the people who tweet a bit too much. I appreciate that use case (follow just a few accounts and read every tweet) though and definitely think they should cater to it.
- tombrossman 11y ago
  Well I'll say it then, you really should unfollow more people. To a point, the more you unfollow the better the signal to noise ratio improves. You just have to find that point. It isn't crude or destructive at all because you will see those good quality tweets from people who are heavy users. You will see them when others who you still follow retweet the good ones. Your feed should be a solid mix of tweets you curated by following interesting people, and tweets those people curated for you by retweeting. It can be a bit awkward to unfollow people you know because there is that social pressure to 'follow back' but this idea is worth it for the positive results. To give a specific example, try unfollowing all local media outlets (newspaper, TV, radio) and instead follow one or two reporters whose feeds you find interesting. You will still see all the interesting local news and you avoid all the marketing and fluff that pollutes the media outlets' Twitter feeds. I read every single Tweet in my feed every day and it only takes a few minutes. There is usually a ton of interesting and relevant stuff in there. I couldn't do this before, when I was following too many people.
  - tyre 11y ago
    Great advice. I follow very few people I know in real life because they aren't interesting on Twitter. I don't feel bad about that — if you don't like what I tweet, you should unfollow me and we can still be real-life friends.
  - tbirdx 11y ago
thenduks 11y ago
Have you considered using a client that doesn't stay scrolled all the way to the top (TweetBot has a toggle for "pin to top" for example)? I would find what you're describing pretty much a deal breaker in my use of twitter, so I use this feature and literally read every tweet from everyone I follow. When I open twitter (and it syncs between desktop/mobile), I'm at the same spot I was when I opened it last.
- DangerousPie 11y ago
  That would help with the scrolling issue, but it would still force me to read through tons of irrelevant tweets to find the few interesting ones...
  - thenduks 11y ago
    True but, in my opinion, inherent to Twitter. Just because some algorithm decides some tweet is 'important' doesn't mean I'll agree :)
- SonicSoul 11y ago
  This seems to be the default in Twitter iOS app and I really like it as well. There's just a new tweets hover button that can be used to follow to the top. So long as they don't mess with this behavior I welcome new ways to find tweets . Just hope they don't turn it into Facebook wall type deal where nobody knows why they're seeing what they're seeing
aledalgrande 11y ago
Wish they kept their Mac client in line with the Web version.
blorgle 11y ago
The problem here is the assumption that the algorithm will do a half decent job at showing you important tweets. Judging by the facebook algorithm, which is utterly terrible at showing important stuff, it seems unlikely. Just another step in the facebookification of twitter to appease short term oriented shareholders who rated the growth too highly. It is already a mess, can't see how adding this will improve the situation. Opposite of the minimal, fast, realtime platform that so many flocked to in the first place. I'm close to deleting accounts for both.
- ablanton 11y ago
  I left facebook for this exact reason. the platform has diminished so greatly that it's now virtually unusable to me.I'm really not sure what to equate the experience to, it feels like trying to read a newspaper that is all ads. It's all vapid useless sales instead of meaningful interpersonal connections over long distances... the way it started. I fear twitter is not far behind.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    Yes. I totally hope Twitter follows in the footsteps of the $200B+ Facebook.
    - blorgle 11y ago
      First of all, market capitalisation is only the measure of the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the current price. You are absolutely kidding yourself if you think that all the FB shares in existence could be sold at the current NASDAQ closing price. Secondly, to achieve the current $296Bn market capitalisation, investors are rating the company at sixty-six times 2015 earnings. That means that FB better be growing at an obscene rate for the very long term, because as we say in the market, FB is "priced for perfection". Any hiccups in earnings or signs of faltering growth and investors will be just as quick to de-rate the FB price as they have been for TWTR. So it can be "worth" $296Bn one day and significantly less than that the next.
rpgmaker 11y ago
I honestly don't know how people can follow hundreds of accounts and stay sane. I "follow" like 6 accounts and I can't keep up! I use twitter very casually and hardly ever twit something about myself at all (if ever). I mostly just respond to someone else's twit or fave the ones I find clever or funny. I don't even use twitter's home page at all because it's filled with noise. I rather just visit the accounts (not necessarily ones I "follow") individually depending on what I want to read about.
jongalloway2 11y ago
The Discover tab (added in 2012 https://blog.twitter.com/2012/discover-better-stories https://blog.twitter.com/2012/discover-better-stories and removed in 2015 https://blog.twitter.com/2015/updating-trends-on-mobile https://blog.twitter.com/2015/updating-trends-on-mobile) solved this problem much more elegantly. Now it's a setting most people won't find, can't be shown on demand. The "While You Were Away" view has been really frustrating to me, because I follow thousands of people and appreciate a summary, but if I accidentally click off it to Mentions I can't get it back. The Discover tab was great because I could click on it whenever I wanted.

talideon 11y ago

I don't think people care so much about the addition of anything so much as the lack of any possibility of permanently turning it off. At least in this case, it's optional, but the related 'stuff you might have missed' 'feature' isn't. I personally really hate this kind of thing as it clutters up my feed, and it never gives anything I care about. The value of Twitter for me come from the reverse-chronological feed, not this kind of thing.

coldpie 11y ago

Yeah, this seems like it might be useful for people who follow loads of accounts. I follow about 40, and I want to read literally everything all of them say. So long as it doesn't fuck up that use-case (e.g. by remaining optional), I'm fine with it.

majewsky 11y ago
Seconded. I regularly prune the list of accounts I follow, so that I don't spend too much time with Twitter but still get to read everything from those people that I find interesting.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
I agree. It seems to me that Twitter is the wrong tool to use if you're trying to communicate important things that must not be missed, or if you're trying to read the same.
yolesaber 11y ago
That's what lists are for. I follow over 400 people but have them segmented into lists and its never unmanageable for me.
- davidpatrick 11y ago
  I feel like lists need more attention. It is such a pain to navigate to on mobile. A lot of people don't even know they exist.
  - yolesaber 11y ago
    Agreed. Rather than dragging users kicking and screaming into an algorithmic timeline, why not play up the strengths of features they already built? Especially since lists allow you to target a user more directly - you can analyze the accounts in the list and get a rough estimate of what the category is - and could generate more revenue for them. Twitter would be really really cool if you could have your lists and then swipe through them like you do with the "Moments" feature (which is awful)
  - coldpie 11y ago
    You're right. I have never heard of "lists" on Twitter. I do use a third party client, Twidere. I wonder if it supports the feature.
- wluu 11y ago
  Yeah, Twitter lists are what has kept Twitter sane for me. Coupled with a decent twitter client (I use TweetBot on iOS) that supports lists in an easy to use way. I actually use Facebook the same way too.
mindcrime 11y ago
Yeah, this seems like it might be useful for people who follow loads of accounts. Yeah, I'd probably like this. I follow a LOT of people (right at the limit of how many you can follow) and I never expect to read every tweet. I just expect to check Twitter every now and then, and find a few useful / interesting nuggets of news. And occasionally I do a #hashtag search if I want to catch up on a specific topic. So, for me, this kind of feature makes a lot of sense, as long as the algorithm does a good job of picking out the "good stuff". It may not be for everybody, but I can see this being valuable for at least some percentage of Twitter users.

tfgg 11y ago

I agree. I, and I suspect quite a lot of their users, stopped using Twitter for quite a while because the velocity was just too high, the signal wasn't good enough. The stuff you might have missed feature has actually made me use it much more, now I can actually catch those quality tweets. I'm sure someone is going to tell me that I should unfollow more people, but that seems like a pretty crude and destructive method to try to increase the quality of my feed. I still want to see good quality tweets from the people who tweet a bit too much. I appreciate that use case (follow just a few accounts and read every tweet) though and definitely think they should cater to it.

tombrossman 11y ago
Well I'll say it then, you really should unfollow more people. To a point, the more you unfollow the better the signal to noise ratio improves. You just have to find that point. It isn't crude or destructive at all because you will see those good quality tweets from people who are heavy users. You will see them when others who you still follow retweet the good ones. Your feed should be a solid mix of tweets you curated by following interesting people, and tweets those people curated for you by retweeting. It can be a bit awkward to unfollow people you know because there is that social pressure to 'follow back' but this idea is worth it for the positive results. To give a specific example, try unfollowing all local media outlets (newspaper, TV, radio) and instead follow one or two reporters whose feeds you find interesting. You will still see all the interesting local news and you avoid all the marketing and fluff that pollutes the media outlets' Twitter feeds. I read every single Tweet in my feed every day and it only takes a few minutes. There is usually a ton of interesting and relevant stuff in there. I couldn't do this before, when I was following too many people.
- tyre 11y ago
  Great advice. I follow very few people I know in real life because they aren't interesting on Twitter. I don't feel bad about that — if you don't like what I tweet, you should unfollow me and we can still be real-life friends.
- tbirdx 11y ago

thenduks 11y ago

Have you considered using a client that doesn't stay scrolled all the way to the top (TweetBot has a toggle for "pin to top" for example)? I would find what you're describing pretty much a deal breaker in my use of twitter, so I use this feature and literally read every tweet from everyone I follow. When I open twitter (and it syncs between desktop/mobile), I'm at the same spot I was when I opened it last.

DangerousPie 11y ago
That would help with the scrolling issue, but it would still force me to read through tons of irrelevant tweets to find the few interesting ones...
- thenduks 11y ago
  True but, in my opinion, inherent to Twitter. Just because some algorithm decides some tweet is 'important' doesn't mean I'll agree :)
SonicSoul 11y ago
This seems to be the default in Twitter iOS app and I really like it as well. There's just a new tweets hover button that can be used to follow to the top. So long as they don't mess with this behavior I welcome new ways to find tweets . Just hope they don't turn it into Facebook wall type deal where nobody knows why they're seeing what they're seeing

aledalgrande 11y ago

Wish they kept their Mac client in line with the Web version.

blorgle 11y ago

The problem here is the assumption that the algorithm will do a half decent job at showing you important tweets. Judging by the facebook algorithm, which is utterly terrible at showing important stuff, it seems unlikely. Just another step in the facebookification of twitter to appease short term oriented shareholders who rated the growth too highly. It is already a mess, can't see how adding this will improve the situation. Opposite of the minimal, fast, realtime platform that so many flocked to in the first place. I'm close to deleting accounts for both.

ablanton 11y ago
I left facebook for this exact reason. the platform has diminished so greatly that it's now virtually unusable to me.I'm really not sure what to equate the experience to, it feels like trying to read a newspaper that is all ads. It's all vapid useless sales instead of meaningful interpersonal connections over long distances... the way it started. I fear twitter is not far behind.
- argonaut 11y ago
  Yes. I totally hope Twitter follows in the footsteps of the $200B+ Facebook.
  - blorgle 11y ago
    First of all, market capitalisation is only the measure of the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the current price. You are absolutely kidding yourself if you think that all the FB shares in existence could be sold at the current NASDAQ closing price. Secondly, to achieve the current $296Bn market capitalisation, investors are rating the company at sixty-six times 2015 earnings. That means that FB better be growing at an obscene rate for the very long term, because as we say in the market, FB is "priced for perfection". Any hiccups in earnings or signs of faltering growth and investors will be just as quick to de-rate the FB price as they have been for TWTR. So it can be "worth" $296Bn one day and significantly less than that the next.

rpgmaker 11y ago

I honestly don't know how people can follow hundreds of accounts and stay sane. I "follow" like 6 accounts and I can't keep up! I use twitter very casually and hardly ever twit something about myself at all (if ever). I mostly just respond to someone else's twit or fave the ones I find clever or funny. I don't even use twitter's home page at all because it's filled with noise. I rather just visit the accounts (not necessarily ones I "follow") individually depending on what I want to read about.

jongalloway2 11y ago

The Discover tab (added in 2012 https://blog.twitter.com/2012/discover-better-stories https://blog.twitter.com/2012/discover-better-stories and removed in 2015 https://blog.twitter.com/2015/updating-trends-on-mobile https://blog.twitter.com/2015/updating-trends-on-mobile) solved this problem much more elegantly. Now it's a setting most people won't find, can't be shown on demand. The "While You Were Away" view has been really frustrating to me, because I follow thousands of people and appreciate a summary, but if I accidentally click off it to Mentions I can't get it back. The Discover tab was great because I could click on it whenever I wanted.