Twitter has indicated that it will begin allowing users to follow interests, they will do this by letting users see tweets about topics of their choosing inside the timeline. Once the feature goes live, one will be able to follow topics including sports teams, celebrities and tv shows, basically, tweets of the various topics that you have selected will be inserted alongside tweets on your timeline.
The topics will be curated by Twitter, with individual tweets being identified through machine learning rather than editorial curation. However, for the time being, only sports-related interests can be followed. The feature is currently being tested on Android.
This feature will be especially useful for newbies who generally have a difficult time in determining who to follow. It is part of the company’s effort to make it easier to find value in Twitter.
Users will be able to mute topics that they have selected if they are not interested in viewing them at a particular time. A good example is if one was following the Game of Thrones topic and did not want to see the spoilers, you can be able to mute that particular topic temporarily.
Twitter is also exploring letting users set up separate lists within the app to follow their individual interests. In a demonstration, a product manager mixed keywords and some individual accounts to create a new list adjacent to the home feed and accessible via swiping.
Other features that Twitter is planning to test include searchable direct messages, the ability to re-order the photos in a tweet after you have attached them to a new post, and plans to add support for Apple’s Live Photos.
Wally Gurzynski, a product manager at the company, had this to say, “We think that altogether this will make Twitter a more powerful interest platform.”