Twitter can be a real nuisance when one has to make his/her way in the tangled interface and feed universe of that social network for the first time. Or it used to, as now Twitter is testing their brand new ‘’Instant Timeline’’, designed in order to ease navigation and twittering. The innovation had to be brought forward, as Twitter is losing ground and users mainly due to its traditional following-system, which makes it less populated than sites like Pinterest or Instagram – and of course, Facebook.
According to The New York Times, the Twitter novelty entered public testing last week and is available to a limited number of Android phone users with a Twitter account. The first changes occur with the signing-up process. Of course, a username and password will be needed in order to get inside Twitter universe. What strikes as novelty is that Twitter will ask for permission to the user’s contact list in order to afterwards undergo a process of scanning the list and comparing it to the Twitter using contacts. In this manner, Twitter will generate pages of interest, according to your friends’ status, likes and overall background. After all, birds of a feather flock together and Twitter understands to use that as advantage.
The idea of not being strained to follow only the feeds of those chosen as friends and the opportunity to relate more easily to information in your field of interest is a great one, which might also reevaluate Twitter’s position in the charts of social networks, making it more visible and accessible. The idea of a more unrestricted Twitter seems to be built in the advantage of the one deciding to create an account, but there is also the less advantageous side of it: that it restrains the intimacy of users. Although a grand plan in itself, this ‘’Instant Timeline’’ might face with people’s decision of not allowing Twitter to gather information from their contact list and thus generating the mighty ‘’Instant Timeline’’ would be impossible.