Twitter adds new feed sorting options to communities

I’m not yet sold to the Twitter community, and the app is likely to become a key element of the experience.

This does not mean that it will not be valuable, or that some communities will not be popular. But how many Twitter users really, actively engaging in communities, or even want to, in light of the app’s ‘Global Public Square’ policy?

However, Twitter seems determined to move forward with the project, including its recent community additions. Algorithmic sorting in community stream.

You can see this as ExampleNow, users have the option to sort their community feeds by ‘for you’ (sounds familiar), which will display each community’s top tweets based on your engagement history or ‘latest’, so that new community contributions appear above.

Explained by Twitter:

“The setting that each person chooses will become the new default whenever they go to that community. The setting is unique to each community and can be changed at any moment, giving people the ability to choose and customize how they view each community individually based on their preferences. “

This can make it easier for you to engage with your selected communities, especially the more popular groups, by surfacing the most relevant tweets. If, of course, Twitter’s algorithms are good at highlighting the best tweets to each user.

So far, Twitter’s algorithm matching hasn’t shown much for personalization, in general, with those with whom you prefer the most or most popular tweets in the algorithm-defined feed.

This is understandable, but not much advanced learning is being applied – Twitter is not great, for example, for showing content that you might be interested in based on your previous activity.

The space tab is a good example of this – tap on the space tab right now and I suggest you have trouble finding relevant spaces with you, the list only shows the most popular space broadcasts at any given time.

As TikTok has shown, algorithm personalization is the key to increasing user engagement, the TikTok system is able to quickly adapt to your preferences, and feed you more of what you like. Nowhere near Twitter’s systems, its ‘follow-up account’ and ‘subject’ recommendations regularly stay away from anything relevant to most users.

This is a big reason why Twitter has failed to capitalize on its position as the main source of real-time discussion. Twitter has access to more trending conversations than any other platform, but it has never found a great way to highlight those chats to each individual user. It’s still theoretically, and maybe it’s part of Elon’s grand plan. But without that capability, most of these ‘top tweet’ displays don’t push the needle on engagement.

However, it may be different in communities where you are already interested in the main topic, and it may help to open up more relevant, more interesting discussions.

At the moment, based on the anecdotal evidence, communities, in general, don’t seem to be getting started, but Twitter says it’s happy to receive communities, and it could still be a thing, if Twitter can find more ways to maximize engagement.

With Twitter though it could be even more difficult now Refocusing its resources on its core componentsAnd moving away from the test.

As reported by Bloomberg:

“According to people familiar with the matter, executives told staff about plans to recoup resources for some long-term ambitions, including audio spaces, newsletters and communities, to focus on more urgent needs, such as user growth and personalization efforts. “

Maybe, then, it could be one of the last community updates for a while – and maybe, the new focus on personalization will yield real results on this front.

Tweet is a confusing time on HQ, which makes it difficult to know what to expect.

Community users can choose from timeline sorting options through the Functions menu at the top right of each community.