Thursday, September 22, 2022

Twitter Tests New Ways To Provide Better Recommendations In User Feeds

It’s no surprise that all leading social media apps are working hard toward altering their algorithms in a manner that recommends the best content on user feeds.

Taking inspiration from TikTok has really turned into a trend and everyone is doing it, with Twitter joining the bandwagon too.

The company recently went public with the decision of experimenting with different ways to better recommend content. They wish to show users more of what they prefer to obviously generate more views and engagement through the app.

This way, Twitter hopes to keep users glued to their screens for a longer period of time, just like they are to TikTok’s app. Unfortunately, Meta has not been too successful with this endeavor.

Gone are the days when we looked at social graph stats to better deduce what people like. Today, it’s all about using AI-powered technology to generate recommendations, just as can be seen by TikTok.

The company highlighted what it's doing to give users recommendations on their feeds and they’re also unleashing a unique experiment linked to providing them with more control. Remember, if users are happy then the app is happy because that’s where the money comes from.



Mentioning the update via its blog post recently, the app says these can best be seen as personalized recommendations that are entirely judged on how you behave on the app, which they call signals.

From your interests to the intriguing topics you follow, the list is endless. You’re also given the chance to engage in a lot of tweets and that is where more signals are generated. It’s also about which tweets are loved by those on your network. As a whole, this is what your recommendations end up appearing as.

Thankfully, the recommended content on this app is not as prominent as what we’re seeing on Meta’s leading apps. Twitter try to do that in 2017 but failed miserably. This is why it’s really taking some calculated steps now.

Twitter knows that its in-app algorithms aren’t fabulous and that’s why it's making these tweaks to get back in the game and give users content that they truly love and are interested in.

The platform says it also has plans to enhance its Spaces Tab because it feels that is also lacking in terms of personalization. They hope to better shape that up by adding more stations and subcategories so users can manually let the app know what they love and enjoy.

Similarly, hosts on Spaces will be told to add topics to conduct their chats.

We find that a little odd that an app is asking a user what they like or prefer instead of manually looking at app activity and letting that indicate better.

Twitter is working on making other changes like introducing an X button for tweet recommendations. This enables the content to be deleted from timelines quicker and allows you to share feedback.

We’re not sure how successful the app will be but it’s high time it gave a look to its Explore page which continues to lack in terms of personalization big time.

Read next: Twitter Launches Handy Apps On Its Toolbox Hub For A Smoother Tweeting Process

by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

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