Author Archives: Scalper1

Twitter ( TWTR ) is testing a new feature that would bring major changes to how people view tweets in their timelines, making the microblog look a bit more like its No. 1 rival, social networking leader Facebook ( FB ). Twitter said that it would start displaying tweets by relevance instead of its usual reverse-chronological-order approach. Some industry observers say that the change could help Twitter bring everyday users aboard rather than keep the service in its current status as a niche haven heavily used by hardcore tweeters such as PR people and journalists. The new feature “helps you catch up on the best Tweets from people you follow,” Twitter said in a blog post on Wednesday, a few hours before the company’s Q4 earnings release . With the new service, “tweets you’re most likely to care about will appear at the top of your timeline — still recent and in reverse chronological order. The rest of the Tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order, as always. At any point, just pull-to-refresh to see all new Tweets at the top in the live, up-to-the-second experience you already know and love,” the company said. After getting feedback on the change and making tweaks, Twitter said that it would “be turning on the feature for you in coming weeks — look out for a notification in your timeline.” Users who dislike the new look “can easily turn it off,”  the company said. A tweetstorm of controversy arose Friday night after unconfirmed reports that the company planned to prioritize tweets based on user preferences rather than a real-time algorithm. Twitter has two groups to please, said Will McInnes, chief marketing officer of Brandwatch, which monitors and analyzes social media, after those reports emerged. Twitter’s user base is divided into “hardcore, weathered veterans, who know and love the platform just how it is, and those newbies that don’t get how it works and don’t stick around to figure it out,” McInnes told IBD via email. “But common to so much else in life, Twitter cannot remain in stasis just simply to placate the most vocal and motivated. How Twitter works must change, and employing an algorithmic timeline feels like a big, important shift to test out.” Earlier reports said that the social network was mulling upsizing its tweet limit to 10,000 characters from the current 140. Snappy, short tweets have been Twitter’s calling card since the company started in 2006. Twitter stock was up 5% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 15. Facebook stock was up 3%, near 103. Growth concerns have depressed Twitter stock, which sunk to a new all-time low of 14.31 on Tuesday. Twitter is down 79% from its all-time high of 74.73, touched in late December 2013. Twitter stock dropped 7% on Friday as business social network LinkedIn ( LNKD ) crashed almost 44%  after low guidance given with a quarterly report. Twitter sank more than 5% Monday and more than 3% Tuesday on difficult days for tech stocks, with Internet review site Yelp ( YELP ) dropping about 11% Monday after a midday earnings report . LinkedIn was trading up about 3% Wednesday afternoon.