Twitter Does Not Want You to Miss a Tweet. Testing 'While You Were Away' Feature?

Twitter has begun rolling out a new feature designed to keep users updated of important tweets from the last time they were logged in.

Aptly called "while you were away," the feature works by compiling top tweets and displaying them on the user's timeline in order for the user to see it as soon as he logs back in. As the feature is still very new, it has received mixed reactions from users who already have it on their account. It is set to be available to all Twitter accounts soon.

The "while you were away" feature of Twitter was hinted by the company back in November. At that time, they mentioned that they would take note of the "best" tweets that appeared in the users' network since the last time they were logged in. These tweets would then be placed on top of the users' timeline in order to make sure that they would not miss any of them.

Aware of the fact that there are around 500 million tweets that get published every day and that some Twitter users follow hundreds, or even thousands, of other people in the network, Twitter wanted the users to catch relevant posts.

"That's why we're exploring ways to surface relevant tweets so the content that is interesting to you is easy to discover -- whether you stay on Twitter all day or visit for a few minutes -- while still preserving the real-time nature of the platform that makes Twitter special," explained Twitter.

User reactions on the new feature vary. While some have expressed delight and excitement, there are those who expressed confusion and frustration.

"Love the 'While You Were Away' feature at Twitter. Achieves its purpose without affecting real time news feed," said Samir Selman.

"OMG, it appears Twitter is testing a Facebook-like algorithm for the Home stream called While you were away..." tweeted Eli.

"That twitter 'while you were away' thing just means I tweet people three days in delay!?! What is it's purpose !?!??," said Twitter user @and-armstrong.

However, it should be noted that the reaction may have come only from the first batch of users who already have the feature in their account. It is expected that the feature will roll out gradually to more users in the next couple of days.

Apart from the "while you were away" feature, other works in the pipeline include an instant timeline for new Twitter users and an enhanced direct messaging experience.