Today, Twitter rolled out an updated interface for iOS, Android and the Twitter.com website that makes a major change to how tweeted conversations are viewed:
Today we’re updating our iPhone and Android apps, as well as Twitter.com, to make it easier to discover and follow conversations in your home timeline. From buzz about the VMAs to debates around upcoming football games, people come to Twitter to take part in these real-time, global, public conversations.
via Keep up with conversations on Twitter | Twitter Blogs.
And the internet is not happy:
the new twitter conversations UI is a crime against reverse chronology
— matt (@mattbuchanan) August 29, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
ahh this new twitter is horrid, i don’t care for all of your conversations. my tl looks so congested
—(@kingeniola) August 29, 2013
Thank you twitter…. I can now recite four different random people's conversations by heart… My life is complete…
— That Dude (@junkyskatr) August 29, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Thanks twitter update for joining conversations that I don't care about
— Curtis J. Ferrill (@YaBoiCurtCudi) August 29, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I don't like this whole new twitter thing with the new conversations
— Gabella (@Devin_Gabella) August 29, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Twitter's new inline conversations are completely distracting and unskimmable. Gotta be a better way to do this. pic.twitter.com/NsPeWstvhY
— Jason Kottke (@jkottke) August 28, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
If Twitter's goal was to increase conversation by talking about confusion over conversations… Success!
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) August 28, 2013
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
However, we’re all missing the point with the twitter-rage (click to go read the search query).
Will Oremus writing on Slate nails the point of this (and why I think it’s a good move for the platform of Twitter):
For all its virtues as an RSS reader, real-time news board, and virtual water cooler, Twitter has never excelled as a platform for connecting with family and friends. The new emphasis on conversations could help to change that. If nothing else, it will privilege tweets that spark discussion over those that don’t.
Twitter, in its ongoing mission to boldly explore the zeitgeist and find a way to make that attractive to marketers, wants to be the center of conversations about twerking at the VMA’s, the next huge 3rd down conversion or that hideously ugly dress at the Emmy’s. It knows that its place is a protocol of conversation that allows for not only operability but also discovery.
Good move, Twitter.