Twitter has been making significant changes to its ecosystem as it seeks to improve the user experience and propel user growth which, many feel has hit plateau. The changes swipping through Twitter have seen the Dick Costolo replaced as CEO by founder Jack Dorsey who also serves as CEO of Square. In the recently released financial results, Twitter was able to increase its revenue but the growth in users slumped. It has also had to deal with a sudden slump in share price occasioned by a leak in its financials prior to releasing them. Some of the changes introduced in the recent past include the introduction of highlights, a feature that allows users to easily catch up with what they missed on Twitter.
Other features include group direct messages, shooting and sharing short videos directly from Twitter’s mobile applications and recently, the ability to quote tweets by attaching them. It has also made it easier for all users to communicate privately with each other regardless of whether they are following each other or not. Twitter users can also add an interface to search results allowing users to easily filter tweets based on top tweets, live tweets, accounts, photos, videos, news and more. Instant timeline feature introduced in January automatically builds Twitter feeds for new users who agree to give it access to their smartphone contact lists.
Twitter is now testing a new feature on the Android and iOS apps under the featured news tab, that brings trending news items to the users on their apps. When tapped, the app ushers in what is currently happening in the world complete with links, images in addition to information from other users on the subject. The new feature is interesting but might all in all fail to gain any traction, as has been with other recently introduced functionality. Twitter is hoping the new feature will be useful to new users joining the social network.
