Twitter is an application focused around real-time social interactions. But what about people who have jobs/families/missions to mars? Twitter will hook you up with an effective “Recap” so that you don’t miss the most important tweets. Recaps is a brand new feature within Twitter’s iOS app that uses an algorithm to provide you the most important tweets while you were away based on user engagement and other factors. While “other factors” is a bit ambigious, Twitter’s goal is to resurface the best and most meaningful tweets in between Twitter sessions. According to their official announcement:
A lot can happen while you’re on the go. To fill in some of those gaps, we will surface a few of the best Tweets you probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise, determined by engagement and other factors.
Obviously, this feature is going to more heavily impact people who use Twitter less frequently. If you check the app multiple times a day, you may not even notice the new feature. However, for those that put more substantial time intervals in between their sessions will be more impacted by the new feature.
Recap was first announced back in November of this past year to mark Twitter’s new focus on innovation and product development. Investors and analysts have criticized Twitter in the past for not being more aggressive in innovating and furthering their product. Twitter shares have been falling and in the past their have even been reports of insiders wanting to sell their shares due to their falling stock prices.
Currently, the feature is only available to iOS users, however; Twitter expects to release the feature to Android and Twitter.com users within the next few weeks.
This is an exciting time and hopefully marks a change in Twitter’s general business trajectory. If only Kelly Clarkston could have been involved and named the feature, “Since you’ve been gone!” (Dreams…)
What are your thoughts on Recaps? Will the feature get you more engaged with your feed? Or does Twitter need to be even more aggressive with their development strategy.