In a platform that publishes millions of tweets every day, it's inevitable that some tweets don't get to be read, or some friendly interactions don't get to be noticed, somehow defeating the real purpose of being connected, especially to what and who is particularly relevant to the user.
Twitter has this in mind when it developed a new feature on its twitter.com: real-time notifications.
"When it comes to your interactions on Twitter, it should be easy for you to stay connected to what's relevant," said the blog post.
With real-time notifications, the user who is logged in on the website will get notifications on interactions such as replies, favorites, retweets, new followers and direct messages. Since it's fully interactive, the user can engage straight from those notifications.
To activate the notifications, user should go to the Settings page on twitter.com, and then choose the types of notification preferred by the use through the website, mobile and email. For Twitter app users, there's a setting there wherein the user can streamline the types of push notifications to receive.
The notifications will show in the lower right corner of the timeline of the user. Unlike other chat features such as Google Hangouts and Facebook Messenger, the dialogue or chat box closes right away after sending the reply.
"We'll be rolling this feature out over the coming weeks," Twitter confirmed.
Observers say the changes make the direct messaging feature more accessible, possibly increasing its popularity among users, although some say this could also be a distraction to picky users.
Truth is, this upgrade already exists in other social media management tools, namely its TweetDeck as well as HootSuite, which give similar real-time interactions or notifications. This might not sound like an upgrade or a new feature to those who have been using such tools for some time.
Earlier this week, Twitter rolled out its new profile design, allowing for a more prominent profile look. Now, users can put a bigger profile photo and can customize the header for a more personalized experience.
It has also been reported later in March that hashtags and @replies on the platform will no longer be part of Twitter, with the company's head of news, Vivian Schiller, even calling these things arcane.
Recall that the number of users on Instagram has almost caught up with Twitter, so the recent changes might somehow bring about good feedback to the platform according to critics. Nevertheless, with all these changes being rolled out here and there, critics say Twitter has been looking a lot like Facebook now.
