Twitter Tests 'Instant Timeline' for New Users
Feature populates users' timelines to get them acquainted with Twitter.
— -- Getting used to Twitter is now virtually painless.
Following someone immediately is no longer necessary. Twitter is hoping to attract and retain new users with an instant timeline feature that aims to hook newbies by dropping them straight into an information stream with an interesting and auto-populated timeline.
The feature, which began public testing last week, according to the New York Times, works by scanning a user's contacts and then, by determining who their friends follow, serves up a tailored instant timeline full of everything from sports to celebrity tweets to news.
The company revealed last November at its first ever Analyst Day conference that it would be rolling out instant timeline and other user enhancing experiences as a way to continue to grow its base and expand on the more than 500 million tweets that are sent per day. It was not immediately known when it would expand to all new users.