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4 Twitter Changes Jack Dorsey’s Return Has Influenced

  • Written By Grace
  • Posted February 11, 2016
  • 4 minutes Read Time

With the news, albeit controversial, that the Twitter timeline is rolling out a new algorithm that will make it appear similar to its social media rival, Facebook, we decided to take a look at four of the other changes that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has made since he made his return to the company as interim CEO eight months ago. It has now been four months since that role was made permanent, and if you frequent the platform you will be aware of the tweaks that have been put in place. A lot lies in trying to jump-start the number of new users Twitter wants to gain while keeping us current users on our toes.

Following a significant shake-up at Twitter HQ among its execs little over a fortnight ago, here are the most prominent changes that have been set in place as part of Mr Dorsey’s latest tenure.

‘Moments

In case you haven’t noticed it or given it a whirl, the moments feature is the one smack bang in the centre of the icons on the footer of your app under the timeline. Twitter is quietly creeping at a shift away from the renowned reverse-chronological timeline. It’s a marmite thing, and it might be one of the reasons you like Twitter, it might not, but a change is as good as a rest, right? There’s simply so much buzz around social media in terms of news, and constant goings-on that offering this particular paradigm is actually a handy way of tapping into the array of information that you may have missed out on earlier in the day. If you’ve not tried it, try it now, you might be pleasantly surprised. But don’t worry, there’s always the regular timeline to fall back on if you’re not keen just yet. Just think of it as an easy, at-a-glance way to see how the major events of the day are unfolding on Twitter.

Cheerio Favourites, The Likes Are Here!

One of the things Twitter must be respected for is its lack of non-timid approach to switching things up no matter what aspect of the platform they are addressing. Exhibit A; waving goodbye to the ‘favourite’. Only three months ago, in November last year, Twitter officially made the change from the recognised star-shaped ‘favourite’ button in place of a heart-shaped ‘like’ button.

Of course, there was a large volume of users who couldn’t contain their disdain for the change. But as with anything that is so heavily used, a change is always going to bring some kind of disapproval. However, several months down the line, the new like button has improved engagement, and everyone has settled down now that they are used to it. Two objectives the team was going for, no doubt.

Twitter Tweaks Its Ad Strategy

As with any social media channels, there is a reliance on the eyeballs of the users as a way to generate revenue through advertising. The standard promoted tweets were the obvious option to start working on Twitter’s social ad business, but this is not enough to set profits soaring.

Ads were introduced to the Moments tab which tied in nicely due to the pull factor it’s attracting, being new and all. Thanks to the new feature, the regular timeline isn’t being pumped full of ads either. However, as with any business, there is the quest to grow and develop, so the company is trying out options to increase commerce, such as allowing users to buy things directly from the Twitter timeline.

Video advertising is another critical new frontline for Twitter, and the company seems to be taking inspiration from another platform, in YouTube, using a similar model for ads to theirs.

Breaking The 140 Character Tweet Limit?

Okay so this hasn’t occurred yet, but the rumour mill is rife with notions that Twitter is said to be mulling over the idea of breaking 140-character limit by some way with a maximum 10,000-character extension. Quite the change, we’re sure you’ll agree, and Dorsey has done little to deny it could happen. As we mentioned earlier, this sort of thing brings outrage from the diehards, but, as many users, Dorsey included, pointed out, lengthening the character limit wouldn’t bring about the end of the 140-character format, but rather let people post longer pieces of text without the need to take screenshots from other sources. This could also have the potential to help eCommerce businesses in the future (that includes Magento agency, Media Lounge, too!).