Everyone calm down: Twitter CEO responds to rumor of timeline shakeup

Twitter

Ignore the premature sounding of the death knell - Twitter won't be messing with your timeline after all.

Earlier today BuzzFeed published a report claiming that Twitter was preparing to switch its chronologically-ordered timeline for an "algorithmic" feed. Company CEO Jack Dorsey has now confirmed that such a shakeup won't be happening.

In a series of tweets, Dorsey said that the company "never planned" to reorder everyone's timelines next week.

"I *love* real-time," he said. "We love the live stream. It's us. And we're going to continue to refine it to make Twitter feel more, not less, live!"

So what's going on?

Since the original BuzzFeed report, NBC News's Director of Branded Content, Josh Sternberg, said sources had told him that the algorithmic timeline would be strictly opt in.

While we can be certain that all the #RIPTwitter hashtags were unnecessary, it wouldn't be a surprise if this is all a mistranslation of some other feature Twitter is working on.

Removing the chronological timeline makes little sense - it's what defines the platform - but it's no secret that Twitter is looking at ways to boost engagement. Last year Twitter CFO Anthony Noto admitted that the service still had some way to reach the "mass market".

The service recently rolled out a new homepage designed to engage people who are not logged into the site. In the last year Twitter has also introduced a 'While You Were Away' feature, which pops tweets you missed to the top of your timeline, and Moments, a new tab that puts a spotlight on the trending stories of the day.

Hugh Langley

Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.


Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.