In a move that highlights the increasing relevance of engaging content for users of social media, Twitter has introduced a feature that will give people more control when collating and organising tweets.
The Custom Timelines feature gives tweeters the ability to make chronological news feeds for specific events, filling them with tweets and links to content about certain users or topics. More importantly, the timelines are public and come with their own page on Twitter.com, which means they can be easily embedded on a website or blog.
As an example, people could use the service to help others stay up to date on commentary surrounding their favourite shows. Fans of X-Factor, for instance, could use it to collate the latest news on the contestants, predictions for coming shows and opinions on the performances.
For businesses, this could mean having an area of a website dedicated to publicising tweets and commentary surrounding industry topics, potentially complementing exclusive site content written by news suppliers.
Speaking about the new Custom Timelines feature in a blog post, the social network’s product manager, Brian Ellin, explained:
“Whether you want to collect the best Tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines let you give everyone a place to follow along.”
As an example for how the feature could be used, Ellin said the Guardian might implement it as part of a Q&A.
Custom Timelines is currently in the trial stages with select users, with a wider roll out expected in the near future.
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