Twitter unveils Highlights; will help users catch up

Twitter on Thursday rolled out a new feature aimed at helping users sift through the large number of tweets on their feed each day. The new feature called “Highlights” offers a twice-daily summary “of the best tweets for you, delivered via rich push notification,” Twitter’s Gordon Luk said in a blog post. “We want to help you get the most out of Twitter, no matter how much time you spend with it. While your home timeline is a great place to browse through and engage with tweets, we know it can be challenging to find the time to get through everything.” The move is the latest by Twitter to boost engagement for its members amid growth which is slower than some rival social networks, in a disappointment since its high-profile stock offering in 2013. Twitter develops Highlights personalized for each user: “We look at things like the accounts and conversations that are popular among people you follow, tweets from people you’re closely tied to, topics and events that are trending in your area or within your network, and people that are popular or trending among people you follow,” Luk said. Highlights is being rolled out first in English for people using Android-powered devices, which can be activated in user settings. “We’re refining the experience on Android first and will consider bringing Highlights to other platforms in the future,” Luk added. In its last quarterly update, Twitter said the number of active monthly users of the San Francisco-based one-to-many messaging service monthly grew to 288 million – just four million more than in the previous quarter. AFP