Twitter has taken another page out of Facebook's playbook and rolls out a new feature for Android that lets users see a summary of the most important tweets of the day.
The new feature, announced by Twitter's Gordon Luk in a blog post, is called Highlights and it basically works like Facebook's News Feed algorithm. Luk says Highlights takes content that Twitter thinks is most relevant to the user by taking a look at things, such as tweets by people close to the user, the most popular tweets and conversations among the people the user follows, and trending topics in the user's network or location.
Introducing Highlights. Get the best of Twitter every day, sent to your Android device: https://t.co/9ZUWgX9lcC pic.twitter.com/sYuu7YUO4D
— Twitter (@twitter) April 23, 2015
"While your home timeline is a great place to browse and engage with tweets, we know it can be challenging to find the time to get through everything," said Luk. "Highlights, a fast and simple summary of Twitter, lets you catch up quickly on the best stuff that is most relevant to you."
Highlights are delivered to users via a push notification twice a day. When users tap on that notification, they are taken through a series of the most relevant tweets, conversations, and people by swiping the screen from right to left. Once they reach the last item, Highlights will turn the user back to the regular Twitter timeline, where tweets are arranged based on the most recent posted.
The feature is opt-in, and users can choose not to see Highlights if they don't want to. To turn on Highlights on an Android device, users simply have to go to their Twitter Settings, select the account name they want to turn Highlights on, and go to the mobile notifications menu. They can then tap the box next to Highlights to tell Twitter they want to receive notifications.
Highlights is just one of the few enhancements Twitter is rolling out to its platforms in a bid to convince investors that it can attract and retain a wide audience for its advertisements. Earlier this year, Twitter rolled out another Facebook-like feature called Recaps for Twitter for iOS, where users see some of the most important tweets on top of their chronological timelines when logging in. Twitter is considering adding Highlights, which is for now limited to English-speaking Android users, to its iOS app, and Recaps is expected to head to Android as well.
Photo: Anthony Quintano | Flickr
