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You are here: Home / Twitter / Twitter Begins “While You Were Away” Tweets in Twitter Stream

Twitter Begins “While You Were Away” Tweets in Twitter Stream

January 2, 2015 at 3:40 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

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twitterheaderTwitter has always been about chronological tweets.  Don’t check Twitter for six hours?  Unless something gets retweeted, chances are you will miss something you might have considered important.  While many have wondered whether Twitter would change to a non-chronological news feed similar to Facebook (although Facebook’s implementation of it has issues too), it would seem they have made the move to alert people to popular tweets they missed while they were away.

The tweet begins with “While you were away…” and features a recent tweet, oftentimes one that has been either favorited or retweeted multiple times.  You can also select the “X” to close the tweet, so you see your full chronological timeline instead.

OMG, it appears Twitter is testing a Facebook-like algorithm for the Home stream called "While you were away…" pic.twitter.com/CpQQMLp0VO

— Eli (@EliLanger) December 31, 2014

One downside is that in the mobile app, the tweets aren’t dated or timestamped to show how recently it was tweeted.  And as Twitter is very much a time-based and time-sensitive platform, I can definitely see some issues with either outdated tweets, or with tweets that don’t really need engagement 2-3 days later.

The feature doesn’t appear to be live to all users, however many US users are now seeing it.

Techcrunch reports that Twitter declined to comment about the new change, so it is unclear if it is merely being tested or if it is simply a slow rollout to all Twitter users.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
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Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google - July 8, 2020
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations - December 6, 2019
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites - September 13, 2019

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  1. Twitter Launches "While You Were Away" to iOS with Android & Desktop Coming Soon - The SEM Post says:
    January 22, 2015 at 5:04 am

    […] actually began testing this feature at the start of the year, when many users began reporting seeing it. The feedback of the time […]

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