Twitter is experimenting with a new version of its Timeline which includes additional features such as threaded conversations and expandable tweets. There’s been no official word from Twitter if this will roll out to all users, but a few were lucky enough to see all the new changes.
***Update: In the past few days, the “Mentions” and “Retweets” tab changed for all users, but then reverted back to its original state for certain users including myself. I wish Twitter would just make up its mind already. I was just getting used to the new layout and then it reverted back to its original state without warning. Fortunately, I was able to grab screenshots of the changes I briefly experienced.
Username
This is a list of all actions by other users related to your username.This includes when someone retweets, follows or favorites your account or when someone adds your @username to a list. Click on “Show mentions only” if you only want to see tweets directed at your username.
Activity
This shows any activity other than tweeting by people you follow do i.e. favorites, follows & retweets.You can easily Follow users or lists your followers have recently followed.
Patrick Bisch of Pinglio was one of the lucky ones who got to experience all its features, and did a brief run through of all the changes.
**Note: All images below are courtesy of Pinglio.
Conversations
If someone has replied to a tweet, clicking on the tweet will expand it to review the full conversation.
Media
If the tweet has a media link to a TwitPic or video, you can click on it to see the media inside your timeline.
If you click on a tweet that has been re-tweeted, you can see a list of people who have retweeted it.
If you click on a username, a pop up will appear with their profile information.
It’s great to see these changes making context around a tweet such as conversation history easily viewable on the Timeline itself. This has been available on several third party Twitter tools such as Hootsuite and Co-Tweet for a while now and Twitter is finally playing catch up with them. These new features are a smart move on Twitter’s behalf, so hopefully we’ll see these changes roll out for all users.
In saying all this, the new features mimic those seen on Facebook and Google. I hope Twitter remains a relatively simple social site as this has always been its charm.
View the video below from Bisch outlining all the changes:
