Twitter's 'While you are away' feature now available for Android

Twitter’s ‘While you were away’ feature, which was launched on the iOS app last month , is now available for Android users as well. The feature will ensure that users who sign into the app will see a snapshot of popular or relevant tweets they might have missed since the last time they logged in. This report on The Verge had noted that it was unclear what metrics Twitter was using to determine which tweets get slotted into this feature. It’s safe to assume though that a tweet’s engagement levels (like retweets, favourites) will be used to determine if it shows up in the feature.

Twitter has said that users who spend a lot of time on the site will see the feature less, than those who access the site less regularly. Twitter’s goal with this is to help users catch up with the world, no matter how much time they spend on the site. With a few improvements to the home Timeline, the company thinks they can do a better job of delivering on that promise without compromising the real time nature of the site. This is Twitter’s way of show summarising everything that might have been going on in the site, if a user hasn’t accessed the account for several days. While the idea of putting together key tweets and discussion into one little tab sounds great, the problem is that Twitter’s USP is real-time update, and some of the tweets might seem outdate if they are the kind of user who logs-in once a month. For Twitter, time-relevant content will make a huge difference when it comes to engaging more users and it remains to be seen how the ‘While you were away’ feature will achieve this.