Twitter Testing Tweet Reordering by Relevance

Twitter is well known and liked for delivering tweets in real time and appearing to the user in reverse chronological order, but recently they have been testing how we see tweets by reordering them by relevance.

Many Twitter users voiced or rather tweeted their concerns at these changes. They felt strongly that losing Twitter's real time structure was a move to mimic Facebook and take away one of Twitter's most distinguishing features.

Facebook have for the last few years adopted the relevance route whereby they deliver posts to timelines depending on how relevant they are to the individual using an algorithm. Whilst tweets can get buried at the bottom of your feed, Twitter added the "while you were away" feature to try and ensure you don't miss anything.

So why would Twitter risk upsetting users? Twitter had this to say about their tweet reordering "This is an experiment. We're continuing to explore ways to surface the best content for people using Twitter". If this was indeed an experiment, it will be interesting to see whether Twitter listen to their customers concerns or in order to grow the network they continue to play with how they present tweets, possibly with the aim to narrow the gap between Twitter and Facebook.

We have seen several fundamental changes over the last few months to this social media platform including the other controversial move last year when Twitter replaced the 'Favourite' star with a 'Like' heart. Tweeters once again voiced their dislike about the hearts, but a few months on and we've grown accustomed to sharing the love on Twitter.

It's not surprising or unusual that changes within the world of social media are greeted with dislike, especially when it is something many of use use on a daily basis in both our personal and business lives. Twitter is a business and needs to grow and develop like any other business, and the fact that there is a significant difference between the number of users Facebook has compared to Twitter can't be ignored.

What do you think about Twitter's change in tweet feed order?