Tweeters have been introduced to a new way to view Twitter conversations, in an attempt to make it easier to keep up with longer threads and contribute to the discussion.
The micro-blogging site released a short video explaining how the new layout will work, showing that conversational tweets will appear in chronological order and will be connected with a line.
“Under the old system, the fact that only the latest reply showed up in your timeline made conversations appear exclusive even when you were following both parties. It felt like you were constantly showing up late to an A/B conversation, and the polite thing to do was to C yourself out.” says Slate‘s Will Oremus, “On reflection, Twitter has decided that it would rather you butted in.”
Tech journalist Om Malik believes the new Twitter conversations are a move to make Twitter more Facebook-like, and help bring more users to the site in preparation for an initial public offering (IPO).
“People come in to Twitter hoping to find a timeline that looks somewhat like Facebook’s Newsfeed and instead find a fast-moving stream that can be very disorienting… And by turning tweets into conversations, the company has introduced the ultimate Facebook-like object — status/comments/conversations into its stream.”
It is thought that an increase in new features such as photos, Vine and now ‘Conservations’ will attract new users and increase the site’s ‘bounce rate’, making Twitter a better prospect to advertisers ahead of the possible IPO.
Follow Holler on Twitter @techtvuk