Twitter is testing a new, custom-built timelines feature
This custom timelines feature, at the moment, seems to be a limited test. The feature will be available for 10 weeks on the web for a “small group of people in the US and Canada”. Twitter is starting a test with a custom-built timeline for ‘The Bachelorette’.
What’s the purpose of custom timelines? Well, it will enable users to scroll through one particular topic, essentially. The content for it is selected and ordered based on relevance to the Timeline’s theme. For this, Twitter will use information like “search terms, Topics, handles, and manual curation”. Accessing the custom timeline will be fairly easy, as it will be readily available at the top of your timeline. Now, like me, many of you likely thought of Twitter’s ‘Lists’ feature when you read about custom timelines. That feature is kind of similar to this one. This feature is a bit different, as Lists are created by individual users and show tweets from accounts on a specific topic.
This feature is different than ‘Lists’, but not entirely different
For custom timelines, a third-party creator will be in charge of custom timelines. This does sound somewhat interesting, though it remains to be seen if it will be any useful. It may not even launch, actually. Twitter tests all sorts of features, though not many of them make it to the actual “small group” testing. This one did, so it’s closer to being available than a lot of other features the company is testing. Twitter has released a number of features in the last couple of years. The company has to be careful not to offer too many forgettable features. Adding bloat to the service is never a good idea, of course.
