Microblogging site Twitter has recently unveiled a new feature that recommends which accounts a user should follow based on their behavioural patterns when using the site.
The new feature has been released in a bid to attract new users to the site. In February this year, it was revealed by the company that the number of users of the site had remained the same in the final quarter of 2015, meaning that no new active users had joined the site. Figures released by the social network suggest that in this period, the number of users had remained at 320 million, despite analysts predicting that the user base would rise to 323 million.
The new feature is known as Connect and is a tab that offers the Twitterverse a personalised list of recommended accounts to follow and tweets to interact with. Twitter analyses the behaviour of the user by examining the things they search for and communities they are a member of, and helps them to discover new and relevant content, or provides suggestions to help them expand their network of connections.
An example of this is if a user follows their favourite football team. Connect will notice that you like this team and the sport, and will suggest other accounts related to the club and football, offering a selection of tweets to interact with.
As well as this, it will also show users a number of top stories from around the world and give the option to sync their contact list to make it easier to search for friends, family, and other acquaintances on the site.
Some are sceptical of this new feature, saying that it is an updated version of the ‘Discover’ tab, which was taken away from the app back in April 2015. These sceptics argue that Connect may overload users with pointless information and may be confusing to new users.
Twitter has begun to roll out the feature on iOS and Android versions of the mobile app with the hope that it will help the platform become a little more user-friendly. The location of the tab varies between versions of the app, but can be found on the top toolbar either in the top left hand corner, or in the dropdown menu highlighted by the three dots icon.
Company executives are concerned about the growth of the site and its performance in recent months, so are testing a range of new features in a bid to try and attract new users to the site. New users often find using the site for the first time to be daunting, as it does take a while to get used to.
Those involved in the company are hoping that having a section of the network devoted to recommendations, new content and building a network may make it easier for new users and help to put Twitter back on track.
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[…] comes at a time of change for the popular social network. At the beginning of last month, the company released its ‘Connect’ feature which makes suggestions of accounts to follow and recommends content to users based on their […]